The Stoning of Soraya M.

Soraya M.#xE2;#xAC;"s husband, Ghorban-Ali, couldn#xE2;#xAC;"t afford to marry another woman. Rather than returning Soraya#xE2;#xAC;"s dowry, as custom required before taking a second wife, he plotted with four friends and a counterfeit mullah to dispose of her. Together, they accused Soraya of adultery. Her only crime was cooking for a friend#xE2;#xAC;"s widowed husband. Exhausted by a lifetime of abuse and hardship, Soraya said nothing, and the makeshift tribunal took her silence as a confession of guilt. They sentenced her to death by stoning: a punishment prohibited by Islam but widely practiced. Day by day#xE2;#xAC;#x1D;sometimes minute by minute#xE2;#xAC;#x1D;Sahebjam deftly recounts these horrendous events, tracing Soraya#xE2;#xAC;"s life with searing immediacy, from her arranged marriage and the births of her children to her husband#xE2;#xAC;"s increasing cruelty and her horrifying execution, where, by tradition, her father, husband, and sons hurled the first stones. A stark look at the intersection between culture and justice, this is one woman#xE2;#xAC;"s story, but it stands for the stories of thousands of women who suffered#xE2;#xAC;#x1D;and continue to suffer#xE2;#xAC;#x1D;the same fate. It is a story that must be told.

Freidoune Sahebjam, the son of a former Iranian ambassador, is a journalist who was sentenced to death in absentia for his undercover reporting criticizing the Iranian government. He lives in hiding in France.