Five persons were executed on Wednesday 5th November 2007, for allegedly having been involved in drug trafficking. The executions took place in Baft (4 persons) and Bam (one person), two cities located in the east of Iran.
The sixth execution took place in the Kermanshah Central Prison, on the same day. Mr. Makwan Moloudzadeh, a 21 year old Iranian Kurdish child offender was executed for supposedly having, at the age of 13, committed anal rape (ighab) with other young boys. Makwan Moloudzadeh’s trial took place on June 7th 2007 before the Seventh District Criminal Court of Kermanshah in Western Iran. During the unfair trial, all the witnesses retracted their pre-trial testimonies, claiming to have lied to the authorities. Also Mr. Moloudzadeh himself stated in court that his confession had been made under coercion. The case caused an international uproar. In addition, at the national level, the sentence was criticised by the Iranian Chief Justice, Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi in his November 10th, 2007 opinion, where he described the death sentence to be in violation of Islamic teachings, the religious decrees of high-ranking Shiite clerics, and the law of the land. However, the judges of the Special Supervision Bureau of the Iranian Justice Department decided to ratify the original court’s ruling and ordered the local authorities to carry out the execution.
The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to apply the death penalty under conditions that blatantly violate international human rights standards. Since January 2007 more than 300 persons have been executed which implies an important increasing trend. At least five of these were child offenders. Today more than 75 children remain on death row.
At the time when the international community engages in decreasing use of the death penalty, and the third committee of the United Nations General Assembly on November 15th, 2007 passed a resolution calling for a global moratorium on the use of death penalty, the Islamic Republic of Iran defies international human rights law.
FIDH and LDDHI strongly urge the Islamic Republic of Iran to immediately stop the inhuman executions, particularly of child offenders, and respect international human rights standards as it’s a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (ICC).
Press contact : Karine Appy + 33 1 43 55 25 18 / + 33 1 43 55 14 12 / kappy@fidh.org