Last week Amnesty International published the list of names of 150 youth in Iran who are on the death row. The names of five women appear on the list while there is almost no information regarding some of them. For example a person is merely mentioned to be under 18 years of age and to be in a prison in the city of Kerman. Along with this list of 150 juveniles, some of whom have been awaiting the execution of their death sentences for days, months and even years, three other countries are named by in the statement to be in violation of international standards and rules regarding the execution of minors. They are Saudi Arabia and Sudan with only three individuals each, and Yemen with just one person awaiting execution. There is a huge difference between having 150 youth on the death row, and just a few. But this is the reality concerning Iran.
In a related development, some 24 regional and international human rights organizations recently issued a statement in which they request Iran to stop executing the death sentence for minors who have committed crimes, according to the international agreements that Iran has signed and committed itself to.
This statement refers to the execution of a 17-year old teenager from the town of Sanandaj, while mentioning the names of four others who await the execution of their death sentences. The report adds that currently some 140 juveniles have been identified who have committed crimes in Iran and await to be put to death by the state. The real figures may be much higher.
What is noteworthy in this report is that Amnesty International also expresses its serious concern about revengeful punishment for some juveniles for supporting and defending human rights activists, and for criticizing the execution of these harsh sentences. It stresses that Iranian authorities must respect the freedom of speech that is part of human rights. It points out that these rights have been well defined in the various international agreements and conventions such as the Protocols on the civil and political rights, and also the UN declaration on the rights and responsibilities of individuals, groups and the society for promoting and defending human rights and the basic rights that have been widely and internationally recognized.
Iran is a member and signatory to these international conventions, without any conditions, including the one relating to the rights of children. Both of these undertakings ban the death penalty for any person under the age of 18 who may have committed a crime. At the time Iran was signing the convention on the rights of child made a very extensive reservation. It said that it would not be bound by the provisions that contradicted with Islamic law. The special committee on the rights of the child which monitors the implementation of the provisions of this convention announced in 2000 its concern that the general exception injected into the terms of the convention by Iran in reality negated many of the protections in the convention, which in fact raised concerns about the implementation and respect for those provisions. The statement that has been issued by these 24 human rights organization requests that Iran withdraw its reservation regarding the incompatibility of Islamic laws.
The issue of who benefits from such harsh forms of punishment of juveniles and what exactly is gained by their death for Iran with a population of some 70 million people, and while it has been repeatedly statistically shown that harsh punishment does not reduce the rate of crime among their peers (which is also true for adults), has been raised many times. At the same time it has been pointed out that such harsh punishment only distracts attention from investigating the true and fundamental causes of the occurrence of crimes, and demonstrates the failure to successfully address the issue of juvenile crime and removing the causes of the same.
Is it true, as the report says, that this brutal practice is merely to take revenge and frighten human rights advocates and activists, or to institutionalize fear in society in order to prevent any critical expression? Does the increase in the numbers of juvenile executions, which feeds the world with dark news Iran, have no other result than to further isolate the country from the rest of humanity?
How can we tell the judiciary officials of Iran that according to law juveniles can stay alive and continue to live with appropriate and suitable punishment? How must one make this request from the judiciary a public and wide-spread demand and point out that killing a juvenile who has not wholeheartedly committed an act does not solve any of the real problems facing the country?
