Legally killing people in public borders insanity in Iran.
The spike in the number of executions carried out so far this year in Iran is alarming and public executions continue to increase. Last month (January) the Iranian Government hanged 33 people in one week alone. In 2013, 625 people were executed, including at least 28 women and a number of political prisoners. But the actual number of executions is a state secret and the authorities permit only a proportion of executions to be reported to the public.
Public executions in Iran are usually carried out using cranes which lift the condemned prisoner by a noose around the neck in front of a large crowd of cheering spectators. Iran remains one of the few countries that practices stoning-to-death for the crime of adultery - the majority of whom are young women. The execution of child offenders is no exception, such as the case of a 16-year-old boy named Abolfazl. He was sentenced to death for accidentally killing a friend during a brawl. The boy is being kept on death row until he can be legally executed at the age of 18.
Abolfazl said; "From the outset I did not have a lawyer and I defended myself. They got me a lawyer on the last day, but to no avail. I miss my father. Nine months ago when I was here they said that my father had passed away. He was only 40 years old. He was a hard-working laborer and loved me very much. He went out of his way to get what I wanted if possible. When I heard he had passed away I cried a lot. I wished I could have seen him, but they did not allow me. They did not even allow me to go to his funeral."
Most of those executed in Iran had been convicted of non-violent offences. It is estimated that on average, Iran hangs someone every seven hours for some 131 capital offences which include a wide range of crimes such as murder, adultery, drug trafficking, homosexuality, apostasy and vaguely worded offences such as "enemy of God" and "corrupters on earth".
Unlike the execution of those killed for criminal offences, the executions of political prisoners are very rarely reported. In Iran, the slightest act of dissidence or criticism of the government is met with arrest, imprisonment, unspeakable torture and usually execution. Additionally, the Iranian regime has devised a clever and new method of executing political prisoners silently, by withholding urgently needed medical care required for either injuries sustained during torture or pre-existing medical conditions such as diabetes. The regime then simply announces that the prisoner died from natural causes in prison, thus avoiding reporting the death as an execution.
Journalists, bloggers, human rights activists, women's rights advocates, lawyers, pro-union activists, religious minorities, and Iranian expatriates have all become targets of the regime as political prisoners.
Read more ... http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4174/iarn-executions-petition
Read more ... http://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/human-rights/15953-death-row-iranian-tee...
Read more ... http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp/story.asp?NewsID=46981&Cr=iran&Cr1=
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Dorina Lisson (Human Rights activist)
Australian Coalition Against Death Penalty (ACADP)
http://www.acadp.com
For A Death Penalty-Free World
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