/ IHRights#Iran: Hossein Amaninejad and Hamed Yavari were executed in Hamedan Central Prison on 11 June. Hossein was arrested… https://t.co/3lnMTwFH6z13 Jun

Executing Child Offenders is a Human Rights and Domestic Law Violation

1 Jul 21
Executing Child Offenders is a Human Rights and Domestic Law Violation

Iran Human Rights (IHR); July 1, 2021: In an interview with AFP, an Islamic Republic official dismissed the criticisms of Iran’s human rights violation, claiming that “the execution of child offenders is not a human rights violation.”

Iran Human Rights Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “The execution of child offenders is one of the Islamic Republic’s most serious human rights violations. Executing child offenders is a gross violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Iran is a signatory to, and is thus unlawful according to international law. The international community must send a message to the Islamic Republic’s judiciary that they cannot arbitrarily change human rights through coordinated and sustained pressure, to abolish the execution of child offenders in Iran.”

In response to criticism from the UN on the execution of child offenders, Seyed Majid Tafreshi, Deputy for International Affairs at Iran's High Council for Human Rights told AFP that the Islamic Republic only does that “three to four times a year” and that such uses of the death penalty “are not a symbol of violations of human rights.” He also called the criticism “unfair.”

"When we are talking about under-18s, we are not talking about six or five years old. We are talking about mainly our 17 years old big boys (where) the court recognised their maturity," he further said.

Majid Tafreshi spoke to AFP three weeks after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reported on the human rights situation in Iran. Antonio Guterres' report expressed concern about the high number of executions in Iran and the government's secrecy around it. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet criticised the Islamic Republic’s use of the death penalty, stating that "over 80 child offenders are on death row, with at least four at risk of imminent execution."

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the Islamic Republic is also a signatory to, explicitly states that “Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age.” Iran signed the convention in 1991 and made the following reservation after ratification: “If the text of the Convention is or becomes incompatible with the domestic laws and Islamic standards at any time or in any case, the Government of the Islamic Republic shall not abide by it."

According to Article 91 of the new Islamic Penal Code, passed in 2013, “In the cases of offences punishable by hadd or qisas, if mature people under eighteen years do not realise the nature of the crime committed or its prohibition, or if there is uncertainty about their full mental development, according to their age, they shall be sentenced to the punishments prescribed in this chapter.” The note to the Article gives judges the power to determine the defendant's mental capacity: “The court may ask the opinion of forensic medicine or resort to any other method that it sees appropriate in order to establish the full mental development.”

Iran is one of the few countries in the world that still carries out the death penalty for juvenile offenders. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which the Islamic Republic is also a signatory to, prohibits the issuance and implementation of the death penalty for crimes committed by an individual below 18 years of age.

According to data collected by IHR and international human rights organisations, the Islamic Republic is responsible for more than 70% of all executions of juvenile offenders in the last 30 years. IHR’s statistics also show that at least 63 juvenile offenders have been executed in Iran over the past 10 years, with at least six being executed in 2018 and four in 2019.

It should be noted that of the four juvenile offenders executed in 2020, only one was reported by domestic media or officials; of the four in 2019, two were reported and of the six in 2018, two were reported.