This document provides a summary of the plot and story of the movie "The Stoning of Soraya M." It discusses how the movie is based on a true story about an innocent woman in a village who is accused of adultery by her abusive husband so he can remarry. She is put on trial without evidence and convicted, then buried up to her waist and stoned to death by the villagers. The summary criticizes the religious extremism, gender discrimination, and lack of fair trials that allowed Soraya to be killed in this way.

1. Presentation By : Sunny Kumar (2011ECS43)
(3rd Yr. SCSE )

3. CAST
Mozhan Marnò as Soraya M.
Shohreh Aghdashloo as Zahra
Jim Caviezel as Freidoune Sahebjam
Parviz Sayyad as Hashem
Vida Ghahremani as Mrs. Massoud
Navid Negahban as Ali
Vachik Mangassarian as Soraya's father
Bita Sheibani as Leila

4. PLOT
Based on a true story, The Stoning of Soraya M. is the
powerful tale of village's persecution of an innocent
woman as stoning.
Director Cyrus Nowrasteh illuminate the dangers of
religious fundamentalism, gender apartheid, and mob rule
over life.
 Movie shows people’s hypocrisy in Islamic Punishment.

5. STORY
A journalist is approached by Zahra, Aunt of Soraya, to tell him about Soraya's
death, by stoning.
 Zahra tells the journalist to escape to tell the story to the rest of the world.
 Ali is Soraya's abusive husband who convince Soraya to grant him a divorce so
that he can marry a 14-year-old girl.
The mullah proposes that Soraya becomes his temporary wife ( sigheh ) in
exchange for protection and monetary support for Soraya and her two daughters.
Soraya refuses.
The mullah, the village's mayor, and Ali ask Zahra to persuade Soraya to care for
a man who has lost his wife.
Soraya starts working for the widower, and Ali plans to use the unusual
circumstance to spread lies that Soraya is being unfaithful to him so that she will
be stoned and he can remarry.

6. STORY (…)
 Ali and the mullah start a rumor about Soraya's disloyalty so they can charge her with
adultery.
 Ali and the mullah manipulates the widower into agreeing to back up their story.
 Soon after, Ali drags Soraya through the streets, beating her and publicly declaring that
she has been unfaithful.
 Zahra intervenes and they bring the widower to the house and after he lies and says that
they had engaged in adultery, a trial is pursued. She is quickly convicted.
 Buried up to her waist in a hole dug for the occasion. Stoning begins with the name of
Almighty. She is pelted with rocks and majority by the male villagers, including her father,
husband and two sons, until she dies.
In this way, One men desire turned into a death of an innocence women.

7. ISSUES
 Torture (Article 5)
 Right to fair judgment (Article 10)
 Discrimination (Article 2)
 Death Penalty (Article3)
 Religious extremism

8. CONLCUSION
 As for women living under Islam's regimes, there is no
escape.
If a man accused of Adultery, the women need to prove
guilt but if a women accused with same, she need to prove
her innocence.
 Stoning is specifically meant as torture - rocks must be
small enough so as not to deliver death too swiftly, and the
process can apparently take many hours to complete. It
portray the immense brutality.

9. CONCLUSION (…)
 Gender Discrimination in punishment

10. CONCLUSION (…)
 Different religions have different beliefs concerning capital punishment. Since not
everyone is of the same religion and each person can even interpret the same religion
differently. This is why governments should separate state and religion.
 Honor killings is common issue women in many counties just to honor their Holy
scriptures.
 Article 105 of the Islamic Penal code of Iran allows a judge to rule according to his gut
feeling instead of hard evidence. As a result, most of not all adultery cases are
unfairly tried.
 If someone involved in adultery, why Death?

11. SCENE
Don’t act like the Hypocrite,
Who think who can conceal his wiles,
While loudly quoting the Koran.
-Hafez, 14th century Iranian Poet
Thanks You