Malak Ghorbany

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Malak Ghorbany is the name of an Iranian woman under sentence of death by stoning.

On June 28, 2006, a court in the northwestern Iranian city of Urmia sentenced Malak Ghorbany to death for committing "adultery." Under Iran's Penal Code, the term "adultery" is used to describe any intimate or sexual act between a man and a girl/woman who are not married. The crime of adultery is also used in cases where a girl is deemed to have committed "acts incompatible with chastity", which includes instances of rape. The punishment is death.

On August 15, 2006, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution introduced by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, drafted with the assistance of Lily Mazahery, president of the Legal Rights Institute and a human rights lawyer and activist, urging the United States Department to officially condemn the stoning sentences of Malak Ghorbany and other women in Iran.

On August 23, 2006, John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a conservative civil liberties group, sent a letter to President George W. Bush, members of Congress and other dignitaries, urging the world's leaders to demand that Iran abide by its obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to ban stoning and other inhumane methods of executing women. Whitehead also called for Iran to grant clemency to Malak Ghorabany and other women who have been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.