Iran – the last executioner of children
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Two weeks
after his 18th
birthday in
2006, Sina
Paymard (left)
was taken to
the gallows
to be hanged
for murder. As
he stood there
with a noose around his neck, he was
asked for his final request. He said that he
would like to play the ney – a Middle
Eastern flute. Relatives of the murder
victim,who were there to witness the hanging,
were so moved by his playing
that they agreed to accept the payment of
diyeh (blood money) instead of retribution
by death, as is allowed under Iranian law.
Sina Paymard remains on death row pending
negotiations with the victim’s family.
Other young people facing execution in
Iran have not been spared. Sa’id Qanbar
Zahi,who was sentenced to death when he
was 17,was hanged in Zahedan prison on
27 May 2007. Mohammad Mousavi was
reportedly hanged a month earlier in
Shiraz for a murder allegedly committed
when he was 16.
Iran has the shameful status of currently
being the world’s sole executioner of child
offenders – people convicted of crimes
committed when they were under the age
of 18. It also holds the macabre distinction
of having executed more child
offenders (24) than any other country
in the world since 1990. Eleven of those
sentenced to death were still aged
under 18 when executed.
Today,AI knows of 71 child offenders on
death row, but the true figure is probably
much higher. They include Delara Darabi
(right), convicted of a murder committed
when she was 17, and Hossein
Gharabaghloo, who was 16 when he
allegedly stabbed a friend to death during
a fight.
In most cases, child offenders
sentenced to death in Iran are kept in prison
until they reach 18,before being executed.
In this period, some win appeals or are
reprieved by the murder victim’s family.
Elsewhere in the world, executions of
child offenders have all but stopped,
reflecting the widespread recognition
that because of children’s immaturity,
impulsiveness, vulnerability and capacity
for rehabilitation, their lives should never
be written off – however heinous the
crimes of which they are convicted.
A growing movement has emerged in
Iran that is pushing for abolition of the
death penalty for child offenders. It is
driven by courageous human rights
defenders and activists who carry on
despite threats and harassment from the
authorities.
Such campaigning inside and outside
Iran has made a difference. Occasionally,
convictions leading to death sentences
have been overturned and the person has
been released.
One such case was that of Leyla Mafi,
who was sentenced to death in 2004 in
Arak for "acts contrary to chastity" after
she was arrested in a brothel when she was
17. Following an energetic campaign by
her lawyer, Shadi Sadr, and AI, the
Supreme Court overturned her death
sentence in March 2005.
The Iranian authorities have a historic
opportunity to join the world consensus
against the execution of child offenders
and end this unacceptable practice. It
should announce an immediate moratorium
on all executions of child offenders
and urgently revise the law so that it
explicitly prohibits the death sentence for
people aged under 18 at the time of the
crime, as an important step towards
abolishing the death penalty altogether.
See Iran: The last executioner of
children (MDE 13/059/2007).