World Coalition Against Death Penalty Expresses Solidarity With Protesting Death Row Families and Calls for Concrete International Action

The statement published today, 15 September 2022 states: "The World Coalition strongly condemns the repression they are facing since 6 September 2022, when families of people sentenced to death in Iran started gathering outside the Iranian Judiciary offices and the Revolutionary Courts where they stood peacefully to say “don’t execute”. On 11 September several of the families were arrested or beaten by the police. 

They have good reasons to demonstrate as according to Iran Human Rights, more than 413 executions have been recorded so far in 2022 in Iran for the first time since 2017. In the first two weeks of September alone, at least 44 people have been executed. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and preventing worried families from gathering to express their grief and concerns when their loved ones are at imminent risk of executions goes beyond understanding.

The World Coalition calls on the United Nations and its Member States, to take concrete measures to prevent further executions, including by making a public outcry about the repression faced by the families of people sentenced to death.

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty is an alliance of more than 160 NGOs, bar associations, local authorities, and unions. The aim of the World Coalition is to strengthen the international dimension of the fight against the death penalty. Its objective is to obtain the universal abolition of the death penalty.

For more information read: https://iranhr.net/en/articles/5476/

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Iran Human Rights is a member of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, and since 2011 an elected member of the World Coalition's Steering Committee