International outcry. Ashtiani (archives)
Iran arrests 'fake journalists' who interviewed Ashtiani's son
Public prosecutor says two German nationals who entered Islamic Republic as tourists in custody for asking son of woman facing execution some questions. Association of German Journalists: Iran blocking block critical coverage of human rights violations
Iran said on Monday it has arrested two foreigners who posed as journalists to interview the son of a woman facing execution by stoning, in a case that triggered international condemnation.
Public prosecutor Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie said that the two people who had entered the Islamic republic as tourists were "now in custody" after they had asked the son of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani some questions.
Ashtiani Case
News agencies
Iranian officials slam US 'double standards,' media criticism of Iranian woman's stoning sentence
"An investigation by official authorities showed these people are not journalists and they have been arrested for faking their journalistic status," Ejeie was quoted as saying by the website of Iranian state television.
The prosecutor was cited as making a similar statement on ISNA news agency, in another report that failed to clearly specify the nationality of the detainees.
But he strongly hinted the detainees may be two Germans by linking them to an Iranian human rights activist who had raised the alarm about the arrests from her base in the European country.
He said the two were put into contact with Ashtiani's family by a "fugitive", alluding to the Germany-based campaigner Mina Ahadi, founder of the International Committees against Execution and Stonings.
"I learned today a fugitive in a foreign country had contacted Sakineh Mohammadi's family and said two journalists are coming to interview you on her case. Then two nationals of that country have gone and interviewed Mohammadi's son.
"In the meantime, another person got suspicious of them and informed officials," he said, without elaborating whether the son and lawyer had also been arrested.
A German foreign ministry spokesman said he was "aware of the information," which he added the German embassy in Tehran was "trying intensively to verify."
The Association of German Journalists also called on its website for the immediate release of the two journalists without revealing their identity or employer.
'We don't know where they are'
Association president Michael Konken said the accusation the two were arrested because they were unaccredited was "a pretext to block critical coverage of human rights violations in Iran."
Previously, Ahadi had said she was on a telephone hook-up Sunday with Ashtiani's son Sajjad and her lawyer Javid Houtan Kian as they were being interviewed by journalists.
"Suddenly one of the journalists shouted, 'What's happening', and then said, 'Mrs Ahadi, I must hang up,' the activist told AFP in Germany.
"Since then, I've had no news," Ahadi said. "Normally we talk to each other daily. I've spoken to friends of Sajjad in Tabriz, and they've had no news either.
"I'm 100 percent sure they've been arrested, but we don't know where they are."
Ahadi said the two journalists were working for a German newspaper, but refused to name them for "security reasons."
Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, was sentenced to death by two different courts in the northwestern city of Tabriz in separate trials in 2006.
The first death sentence, by hanging, for her involvement in the murder of her husband, was commuted to a 10-year jail term by an appeals court in 2007.
But the second, by stoning, was on a charge of adultery levelled over several relationships, notably with the man convicted of her husband's murder, was upheld by another appeals court the same year.
Since July, Iranian officials have said repeatedly that the stoning sentence has been stayed, in the face of an international outcry that has seen strong representations by the French and Italian governments as well as the Vatican.
Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said last month that "the judicial process has not yet finished and the final judgment will be announced after the end of the process."
Ashtiani's previous lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaie, fled Iran for Norway when Tehran issued an arrest warrant against him at the end of July.
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