The head of the Iranian Judiciary, Ayatollah Hashemi-Shahroudi,...

The head of the Iranian Judiciary, Ayatollah Hashemi-Shahroudi, in a meeting with EU Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten described the Islamic Shari'ah practice of capital punishment by stoning as a protector of the family unit.
"At present, we are not considering a substitute for that punishment," Shahroudi said . In December 2002, a Financial Times report said that a European Union human rights delegation to Tehran had received official assurances that stoning was to be abolished in Iran as a form of capital punishment.
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, head of the judiciary, had issued an internal directive to judges instructing them to use prison terms and other forms of punishment for the crime of adultery, Iranian officials told the EU mission.
The EU and Iran started negotiating a trade and co-operation agreement in Brussels on December 12, but the EU says it expects such a deepening of their relationship to be matched by progress in other areas, such as human rights. The issue of stoning is high on the EU agenda.