Iran Hangs Woman Despite World Appeals

An international campaign to spare an Iranian woman from hanging seemed to be working over the last month, with authorities granting Reyhaneh Jabbari a temporary stay. Today, though, the message on the campaign's Facebook page reads, "rest in peace," reports the Guardian. Iran's official IRNA news agency says the 26-year-old was hanged at dawn today for the killing of an intelligence official. Jabarri, then 19, maintained that she stabbed Morteza Abdolali when he tried to sexually assault her inside an apartment.

Groups including Amnesty International say that the investigation was a joke and that her confession was obtained under duress, reports the BBC. Jabbari had been an interior designer, and Abdolali hired her to redesign his office. Her supporters say that she stabbed her assailant once in the shoulder and fled and that a second man in the building was the true killer. Abdolali's family insists the killing was premeditated and refused to offer last-minute clemency, which is allowed in Iran with sometimes dramatic results. (More Iran stories.)