The Stoning of Soraya M.

While stoning is officially prohibited by the fundamentalist regime in Iran, every mullah is free to act as he wants. Muslims cannot stone a human being, but when a woman is accused by her husband - rightly or wrongly - of infidelity, she is no longer considered human. This is the true story of an innocent woman stoned to death in modern Iran. Soraya M.'s husband Ghorban-Ali, was a shiftless, ambitious man, prone to rages and dreams of wealth. He wanted to get out of his marriage. When Soraya began cooking for the widowed husband of a friend, he found his excuse. Abetted by village authorities and aided by Islamic law, he accused his wife of adultery. Soraya M. - rendered mute by the injustice of the accusations, exhausted by her husband's constant abuse and her grinding daily routine - said nothing in her defense, and her silence was taken as guilt. Perhaps, too, she knew that her protests would not be heard. She was taken away, buried up to her shoulders and neck in the ground, and then stoned to death. Day by day, hour by hour, the author re-creates Soraya's unbearable ordeal, providing the reader with an eyewitness account of a terrible miscarriage of justice. The book - already an international best-seller - also eloquently reveals the ever-growing disparity between the fundamental rights of men and women in Muslim society today.