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

Juvenile Offender Hossein Shahbazi Still at Imminent Risk of Execution Despite Temporary Postponement

25 Dec 21
Juvenile Offender Hossein Shahbazi Still at Imminent Risk of Execution Despite Temporary Postponement

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); December 25, 2021: Authorities have informed juvenile offender Hossein Shahbazi’s family that his execution has been postponed for ten days. He remains at imminent risk of execution.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, authorities have informed juvenile offender Hossein Shahbazi’s family that his execution has been postponed for ten days.

An informed source told Iran Human Rights: “His lawyer is seeking to make an Article 477 application to have his death sentence revoked.”

On November 24, juvenile offender Arman Abdolali was abruptly executed despite officials telling his family that his execution had been postponed.

Article 477 of the Code of Criminal Procedure: “Should the Head of Judiciary find any decisions made by judicial authorities contrary to Sharia, he shall request a retrial and send the case to the Supreme Court for consideration and a final decision at a special branch assigned by the Head of Judiciary. Should the aforementioned special branches find any contraventions with Sharia, the former decision will be void and they shall reconsider the case both in form and substance, and issue an appropriate decision.”

Hossein Shahbazi was 17 years old at the time of allegedly committing the murder during a mass fight in 2018.

A source previously told Iran Human Rights that Hossein was tortured to make self-incriminating confessions during the interrogation phase. “Due to the family’s financial problems, they couldn’t afford to get Hossein a lawyer,” they said. Hossein had also been sent to the legal medical examiner to assess his mental maturity days after arrest and was found to have reach maturity and fully developed.

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 a signatory to, prohibits the issuance and implementation of the death penalty for crimes committed by an individual below 18 years of age. 

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.” However, the new Islamic Penal Code adopted in 2013 explicitly defines the “age of criminal responsibility” for children as the age of maturity under Sharia law, meaning that girls over 9 lunar years of age and boys over 15 lunar years of age are eligible for execution if convicted of “crimes against God” (such as apostasy) or “retribution crimes”(such as murder).