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Iran denied reports on Friday that it had freed a woman originally sentenced to death by stoning. The news came a day after human rights campaigners announced to the media that sources in Iran said she had been released.

The Web site of Iran’s state-run English language news channel, Press TV,, said reports that the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, had been released were false and were part of a “vast publicity campaign by Western media.”

Ms. Ashtiani was convicted of adultery in 2006 and sentenced to stoning, but after Iran came under withering worldwide criticism, Iranian authorities said she would not be executed that way. They then accused her, and eventually convicted her, of killing her husband.

Mina Ahadi, spokeswoman for the International Campaign Against Stoning, announced Thursday that sources in Iran had said Mrs. Ashtiani, her son and her lawyer were free. Ms. Ahadi’s group has supported Ms. Ashtiani.

After news reports aired Ms. Ahadi’s statements, Maureen Harper, the wife of the Canadian prime minister, and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy issuing celebratory statements.

Some news reports also ran images of Ms. Ashtiani standing in the doorway of her home in a village in Iran’s northwestern Azarbaijan region and speaking with her son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, in an informal setting, prompting further speculation that they had been released.

The photographs have subsequently been revealed to be stills from a new documentary program, due to be broadcast on Press TV. The Press TV web site said Ms. Ashtiani had gone to her home with a camera crew to recount details of the murder.

The documentary, Iran’s latest attempt to counter the international news media campaign against Ms. Ashtiani’s execution, is its first to directly address foreign audiences on the issue. On two previous occasions, Iranian state broadcasting has shown confessions by Ms. Ashtiani that human rights groups said appeared to have been forced.

Iranian programs have also aired denunciations by her of human rights campaigners who have joined her cause.

“They are taking my side unnecessarily, I do not consider them legitimate at all,” Ms. Ashtiani said in comments shown on domestic television in November that her lawyers have said were made under pressure during detention.

Two Germans who entered Iran intending to interview Ms. Ashtiani’s son remain in detention after being arrested by Iranian security officers in October and charged with spying. German leaders have said the two were journalists.