Iran Human Rights Organization: 239 People Executed in Iranian Prisons Over the Past Six Months
A human rights organization announced that 239 executions were recorded in Iran during the first six months of 2017, including the execution of three convicts who were under 18 years old at the time of committing their crimes.
According to a report published on July 1st on the Iran Human Rights Organization’s website, the organization documented 194 extrajudicial executions and 45 official executions during this period.
The report indicates that among those executed, 129 were convicted of drug trafficking offenses, while the Islamic Consultative Assembly is reviewing a bill to abolish the death penalty for some drug trafficking-related crimes. Some lawmakers have asked the judiciary to refrain from executing several thousand prisoners sentenced to death for drug trafficking until the review of this bill is completed.
The report also states that three of those recently executed were individuals who committed crimes when they were under 18 years old.
The United Nations and several other international organizations have identified Iran as one of the countries with the highest execution rates in the world. Iran’s judicial system has also stated that most of these individuals were executed due to drug trafficking.
However, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated last week in his report that while most death sentences in Iran are related to drug trafficking, according to international standards, such crimes are not considered “most serious crimes.”
Another factor contributing to the high number of executions in Iran is the issuance of death sentences for the crime of intentional murder, which is carried out according to the religious principle of qisas (retribution).
Qisas is a religious principle accepted in Iranian law as a judicial principle. According to this religious directive, the perpetrator of a crime must suffer the same punishment they inflicted. Thus, a person who takes another’s life is sentenced to death.
The Islamic Republic of Iran executed more than 530 people last year and 113 people in the first two months of the current year.
Source: Voice of America
