The son of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, pleaded Thursday for Brazil to keep up its campaign to try to save his mother’s life.

“Please, don’t abandon us, don’t leave us alone in this struggle. Your voice has more weight for the president (Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinehad) than ours,” Sajjad Ghaderzade said in an interview with the newspaper O Globo.

His appeal was directed at Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has already tried in vain to convince Iran to let Mohammadi-Ashtiani take up asylum in Brazil instead of being executed.

Ghaderzade, 21, said Lula’s efforts had had “a very positive effect” in raising the profile of his mother’s predicament.

Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a mother of two, was given the death penalty for an extramarital relationship. Iran has subsequently said she was also convicted of being an accomplice in her husband’s death, though she has denied that was the case. Her plight has prompted protests in Europe and an international campaign to spare her.

source: AFP