I think in terms of the human rights development in Iran, an important aspect would be looking at the way the judiciary works to see what the deficits are in terms of human rights standards. Now, in many ways the shortcomings have been highlighted, both in the UPR reviews four years ago and the treaty body reviews under the [Technical difficulty—Editor] political rights and many other areas. They are primarily focused upon the due process deficits in the way trials are carried out.
There's also a question of qisas, that is the Islamic law of retribution, and to what extent therefore the state can exercise the role of clemency it has under international law. In this particular case, many issues were raised with the government through my own work, and the response I got is that the state can't intervene in the case of qisas. They were trying to persuade the family to forgive, rather than demand retribution as qisas. But the only qisas issue I had with this particular case was the fairness of the trial. The irregularities in regard to due process rights, the extent to which the victim had the chance to defend herself, had a chance to have all the evidence considered, and the extent to which her story was given under some sort of duress.... And, of course, the absence of a motive. There was never a motive--at least in the response I got--established by the state. So there are a number of issues about this particular case that go beyond, perhaps, the issue of qisas in general.