Iran to stone 9 people to death for adultery: activist

Iran has sentenced nine people to death by stoning for committing adultery, an activist said Sunday.

Shadi Sadr, a lawyer and women's rights activist, said eight women and one man were convicted of adultery in separate cases but that protocol wasn't properly applied in any of the trials.

Six of the nine were convicted based only on the judges' decisions with no witnesses or the presence of their lawyers during their confessions, said Sadr, who has been campaigning in Iran against stoning deaths.

 "Their verdicts are approved, and they may be executed at any time," she told reporters in Tehran. "We are trying to stop the implementation of their verdicts. And we want to amend the country's penal law, in which death by stoning is prescribed."

Under Islamic laws in Iran, adultery is the one capital offence punishable by stoning. A man is buried up to his waist, while a woman is buried up to her neck, and then those carrying out the stoning throw stones until the condemned dies.

Stoning was widely imposed in the early years after Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979, but it has seldom been applied in recent years.

Reformists have demanded an end to death by stoning, but opposition from hardline clerics has sidelined their efforts.