Amnesty International Tells Iran to Stop Executing Young People
Iran remains one of the few countries in the world which allows the execution of young people under the age 18, Amnesty International reported today in the report named “Growing up on death row: The death penalty and juvenile offenders in Iran.”
“This report sheds light on Iran’s shameful disregard for the rights of children. Iran is one of the few countries that continues to execute juvenile offenders in blatant violation of the absolute legal prohibition on the use of the death penalty against people under the age of 18 years at the time of the crime,” said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
“Despite some juvenile justice reforms, Iran continues to lag behind the rest of the world, maintaining laws that permit girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 to be sentenced to death,” the Amnesty official stressed. According to the report, between 2005 and 2015 there were recorded 73 executions of juvenile offenders in the oil-rich country. Moreover, according to the UN at least 160 juvenile offenders are currently on death row. Amnesty said that the true numbers are even higher, as many executions are not reported.
Amnesty reported that some of the arrested young people are not guilty as the Iranian authorities are using violence to force fake confessions. “The report paints a deeply distressing picture of juvenile offenders languishing on death row, robbed of valuable years of their lives – often after being sentenced to death following unfair trials, including those based on forced confessions extracted through torture and other ill-treatment,” said Said Boumedouha.
In a number of cases the authorities have scheduled the executions of juvenile offenders and then postponed them at the last minute, adding to the severe anguish of being on death row. Such treatment is at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading, Amnesty stressed.
“Iran’s authorities must…commute the death sentences of all juvenile offenders, and end the use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders in Iran once and for all,” the Amnesty official stressed.
Comments