An Iranian Woman’s Unlikely Supporter: Lindsay Lohan

Can Lindsay Lohan do anything right? Apparently not.

People around the world, including Lohan, are protesting the stoning sentence that was handed down to an Iranian woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, for adultery charges. Her sentence has since been stalled, though no one knows for how long.

The 43-year-old, mother of two was charged for adultery in 2006 and sentenced to 99 lashes in Iran. However, after being accused of murdering her husband later that year (charges which were subsequently dropped) a judge decided to re-examine the adultery charges and re-sentenced her. To death. By stoning.

(Read Time.com’s take on the death-by-stoning controversy)

The new sentence is possible because of a loophole called “judge’s knowledge,” where a judge is allowed to make a ruling without evidence.

Mohammadi Ashtiani has since been granted a reprieve, perhaps because of international pressure, though many believe she will still be executed by other means once international attention has died down. A belief that is compounded by the fact that Iran has issued a media blackout on coverage of the death sentence.

While many, many people have been protesting the gruesome sentence—celebrities included—Lindsay Lohan’s efforts at protesting have only succeeded in making the troubled star look worse.

Lohan took to Twitter to post about human rights violations and linking to a NewsWeek article about Mohammadi Ashtiani, shortly after receiving her own jail sentence. Almost immediately, she was slammed for comparing herself to Mohammadi Ashtiani. Which is something she never actually said.

Though Lohan is definitely not the easiest person to defend, perhaps she should be cut some slack on this one. Lohan’s been known to support human rights work in the past and this case is particularly horrific.

And let’s face it, it’s not really necessary to put words into Lohan’s mouth in order to make her look bad. She’s usually pretty capable of doing that on her own.