Saving Iran’s Children From Death Row

Shadows of an Iranian policeman and a noose are seen on the ground before an execution in Pakdasht, south of Tehran, March 2005.

The mass execution of more than 20 people in Iran’s Rajai Shahr prison was not the only grim news from that country this past week, the Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, August 9, 2016.
On August 1, Alireza Tajiki, who was sentenced to death at age 15 following a trial that fell short of international standards, was saved from execution thanks to the last-minute efforts of his family and his lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh. Unfortunately, the postponement is only temporary.
Alireza, now 19 is set to be executed on August 3.
Amin Tajiki, Alireza’s brother, told Human Rights Watch that their family had requested a retrial based on new evidence, but the court rejected their request.
Scores of children are believed to be on death row in Iran, despite denials by the head of Iran’s judiciary, Sadegh Amoli Larijani. Amnesty International has identified the names and locations of 49 such children, and the UN believes the number could be as high as 160. The majority of children on death row in Iran were convicted in trials that fell far short of international standards. In many cases, they reported torture and mistreatment in detention.
On July 18, Amnesty International reported that Iranian authorities hanged Hassan Afshar, who was arrested at 17. He had no access to a lawyer.
As a party to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on Rights of the Child, Iran is obliged to end child executions. The country has taken some small, positive steps. Since 2013, judges may use their discretion to not sentence a child offender to death if they do not understand the nature of the crime. Judges may now seek the opinion of the government’s Forensic Medical Department to assess the child’s mental state. Also, all children sentenced to death under Iran’s old penal code are eligible to be retried under the new one, passed in 2013, although they have to file for a retrial.
But, not only do these narrow reforms fail to meet Iran’s obligation to end all executions of children, but in practice, they are negated by ongoing abuses. Iranian authorities frequently deny children in pretrial detention access to a lawyer. Many children spend up to a decade on death row based primarily on confessions made under credible allegations of torture.
Now the Iranian judiciary should save all child offenders from the cruel fate of execution by granting them retrials in accordance with international human rights law standards. Child offenders like Alireza should never have been on death row in the first place.

AI: Iran regime's denial of medical care to political prisoners is cruel and utterly indefensible

Iran is putting political prisoners lives at risk by denying them medical care

Amnesty International: Iran’s authorities are callously toying with the lives of prisoners of conscience and other political prisoners by denying them adequate medical care, putting them at grave risk of death, permanent disability or other irreversible damage to their health, according to a new report by Amnesty International published today.
The report, Health taken hostage: Cruel denial of medical care in Iran’s prisons, provides a grim snapshot of health care in the country’s prisons. It presents strong evidence that the judiciary, in particular the Office of the Prosecutor, and prison administrations deliberately prevent access to adequate medical care, in many cases as an intentional act of cruelty intended to intimidate, punish or humiliate political prisoners, or to extract forced “confessions” or statements of “repentance” from them.
 “In Iran a prisoner’s health is routinely taken hostage by the authorities, who recklessly ignore the medical needs of those in custody. Denying medical care to political prisoners is cruel and utterly indefensible,” said Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
“Prisoners’ access to health care is a right enshrined in both international and Iranian law. When depriving a prisoner of medical care causes severe pain or suffering and it is intentionally done for purposes such as punishment, intimidation or to extract a forced ‘confession’, it constitutes torture.”
The report details 18 appalling cases of prisoners who have been denied medical care in some form and are at risk of suffering permanent damage to their health.
 Prisoners subjected to a shocking range of abuses
The report provides a deeply disturbing image of the Office of the Prosecutor, which in Iran is responsible for decisions concerning medical leave and hospital transfers. The Office of the Prosecutor often refuses to authorize hospital transfers for sick prisoners even though the care they need is not available in prison, and denies requests for medical leave for critically ill prisoners against doctors’ advice.

16-year-sentence against critically ill human rights defender signals all-out repression

 
Amnesty International – May 19, 2016 - The shocking 16-year prison sentence against prominent human rights defender Narges Mohammadi, who has several serious, chronic illnesses, represents an all-out attack on human rights defenders in Iran, and demonstrates how Iran’s abusive criminal justice system is used as a tool of repression, said Amnesty International.

Narges Mohammadi, a distinguished human rights defender, a supporter of the anti-death penalty campaign Legam (Step by Step to Abolish the Death Penalty) and vice president of the Center for Human Rights Defenders in Iran, was sentenced by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran which convicted her of several trumped-up national security related offenses in connection with her human rights work. The verdict was communicated to her lawyer on 17 May.
“Narges Mohammadi’s sentence is yet another chilling example of Iran’s use of vaguely worded national security charges to crack down on peaceful freedom of expression. There is no doubt that she is being unjustly punished for her steadfast commitment to human rights.

URGENT ACTION: JUVENILE OFFENDER FACES THE GALLOWS AGAIN

Juvenile offender Salar Shadizadi has been rescheduled for execution on Saturday 28 November, despite the prohibition on the use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders under international law and standards, and his right to be granted a re-trial under Iran’s own domestic law.

Salar Shadizadi, now aged 24, was sentenced to death by Branch 11 of the Provincial Criminal Court of Gilan Province in December 2007 for stabbing his childhood friend. He was 15 years old at the time. The sentence was upheld by Branch 37 of the Supreme Court in March 20 08 and approved by the Head of the Judiciary in May 2013. Since then, the authorities have twice scheduled the execution and later postponed it. They have, however, failed to take the steps necessary to ensure that Salar Shadizadi is granted a re-trial, even though the General Board of Iran’s Supreme Court has ruled that all those on death row for crimes committed when they were under 18 are entitled to receive a re-trial based on the new juvenile sentencing provisions of Iran’s 2013 Islamic Penal Code.
Salar Shadizadi was arrested in February 2007 and charged with the murder of a friend when he was 15 years old. He was not granted access to a lawyer at the investigative stage and was only allowed to retain a lawyer when his case was sent to court for trial. He says that he was also tortured and otherwise ill-treated during the investigative stage. In a will letter written from prison in November 2015, Salar Shadizadi has revealed, for the first time, how he unintentionally caused the “catastrophic” death of his childhood friend by unintentionally stabbing a frightening moving object, covered in green cloth, in the dark, which he then realized to be his deceased friend. He writes that this happened in the context of a “silly game” where his friend had dared him to go to their family garden at night, knowing that Salar Shadizadi was afraid of the dark and had been warned by his grandmother since childhood that the garden is haunted by “evil spirits” (jen). The execution of Salar Shadizadi was scheduled on 1 August 2015 but was postponed at the last minute, possibly as a result of international pressure.

A call to stop the savage executions in Iran

   Executions in Iran under Hassan Rouhani

Sister of death row prisoner: Khamenei will be responsible if anything happens to him

The sister of Mohammed Ali Taheri, the prisoner of conscience on death row and currently on a hunger strike, said Iran’s leaders will be responsible for his fate.
“Mohammed is in his 58th day of hunger strike. On October 7th his family went to visit him in Evin Prison . He had become very skinny and was very ill. He was looking like a skeleton. We are very worried. The family asked Mohammed to end his hunger strike, but he said he will continue until his demands are met. The hunger strike is in his the only means left for him,” Azardokht Taheri said.

  

Azardokht Taheri at a rally for her brother in New York 

  

“If anything happens to him in prison Khamenei himself and judiciary officials must be held accountable. Mohammad had very basic and legal requests, and he launched a hunger strike due to the officials neglect to these requests,” she added.
“Mohammad is not allowed to see his clients. They don’t even provide him with any papers or pens to write down his defense statements. They haven’t even announced his verdict to him. He has learned of his ruling through his family. If I learn that if I set myself able my brother will gain some attention and someone will do something, I will most definitely do this,” she added.

( NCRI Women’s Committee – October 10, 2015)

Mohsen Mojtahed-Shabestari on crackdown against Iranian women

Iran: Tabriz Friday prayer leader calls for more crackdown on women

Mohsen Mojtahed-Shabestari, Khamenei’s representative in West Azerbaijan Province (northwest Iran) in a meeting with state security force commanders of this province called for further crackdown on women.
“Some people in the society neglect the Sharia and Islamic rulings and principles. One must stand firm against these measures,” he said.
“The police must use its all its force and will to act based on its legal duties and take the fight against moral indiscipline seriously,” he said in reference to what the mullahs in Iran describe as improper veiling.

(State-run IRNA news agency – October 8, 2015)

Int’l gathering in Paris marking World Day Against the Death Penalty

  Marking World Day Against the Death Penalty

Int’l gathering in Paris marking World Day Against the Death Penalty, Surge of executions in Iran during Rouhani’s presidency and need for urgent action

Marking World Day Against the Death Penalty on Saturday, a global gathering was held in Paris highlighting the surge of executions in Iran and need for urgent action.

 MARYAM RAJAVI: OUR PLAN IS AN IRAN WITHOUT THE DEATH PENALTY.

  The bloodletting mullahs have executed more people this year than they did last year.

While a single execution is enough to arouse everyone’s conscience, the shame of world powers is their silence over the situation in Iran especially as they are seeking nuclear talks and agreement, and trade deals.
 Such commercial calculations over human lives have never been a good investment for anyone.

If Western governments had stood up to the abuse of human rights in Iran, the mullahs could never expand their barbarity to Syria and Iraq. Mrs.Maryam Rajavi is cheered to the podium by supporters of democracy and human rights in Iran.