Feb 05 2008
Iran: Nine minors waiting to be hanged
Iran: Nine minors waiting to be hanged
Tehran, 4 Feb. (AKI) – Nine minors condemned to death in Iran are waiting in prison for their 18th birthday when they will be executed.
The minors – Benjamin Rasouli, Behrooz Shojaii, Morteza Feizi, Massoud Kafishir, Saiid Gazi, Hossein Taranj, Mehdi Azimi, Hamed Pour Heydari and Mostafa Naghdsi – are all minors that committed crimes during their adolescence.
All were found guilty by Islamic courts and condemned to death.
The teenagers are being detained in prison in Rajaishahr, around 100 kilometres from Tehran.
Although it has signed all the conventions that ban the death penalty for minors, Iran has hanged many young people who at the time they committed their crimes were under 18 years of age.
The last young person hanged for committing a crime during his adolescence was Makwan Moloudzadeh, hanged on December 5 last year in Kermanshah prison in Iranian Kurdistan.
Makwan was accused of having had homosexual relations with two companions at the age of 13.
Iran is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both of which require that the authorities do not execute child offenders – those under 18 at the time of their alleged offence.
At the time of Makwan’s execution, human rights group, Amnesty International, said: “Execution for a crime committed at the age of 13 is a gross abuse of international human rights, which prohibit the execution of those convicted of crimes committed under the age of 18.”
Amnesty said in 2007 alone, the Iranian authorities executed at least five other child offenders while at least 75 others remain on death row.ttp://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1843146531
ttp://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1843146531
5.2.08
