Javed Rahman's meeting with human rights activists; Shahin Milani: More than 20 Iranian children are on the verge of execution
Following a meeting with Javed Rehman, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, human rights activist Shahin Milani told VOA: "Currently, more than 20 child criminals are under sentence of death in Iranian prisons."
Shahin Milani, Director of the Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center, says: In a meeting held on the sidelines of the 40th session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations, Mr. Javed Rahman, the UN Special Rapporteur, decided to focus more on the issue of the laws on the execution of child criminals under the age of 18 in Iran. These laws are a clear violation of international law, and this is an issue through which the authorities of the Islamic Republic can be convinced to stop the execution of child criminals.
On Monday, March 10, the 27th session of the 40th session of the UN Human Rights Council was held, and Javed Rehman, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, pointed to the continued execution of people who committed crimes as children and are held in prison until they reach the legal age, and considered the execution of minors to be a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international conventions to which the Islamic Republic has acceded.
According to Shahin Milani, the current process of trial and issuing death sentences for child criminals is the same as in previous years, but Mr. Javed Rahman is hopeful about the changes made to the Islamic Penal Code enacted in 2013; laws that have given judges more authority to issue alternative punishments, a law that is currently not being used and the issuance and execution of death sentences for child criminals continues.
According to this human rights activist, the issue of children's rights in Iran does not end with the execution of child criminals. The main issue that leads to the issuance of such sentences is the age of puberty, which is set at 15 for boys and 9 for girls. This means that girls are considered adults at the age of 9 and boys at the age of 15, and from a religious perspective, they have equal intellectual development to people over 18.
In March of this year, Amnesty International issued a statement calling for an immediate halt to the executions of three child criminals who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime.
According to this human rights organization, Mohammad Kalhor was sentenced to death for murdering a school teacher at the age of 15, Barzan Nasrollahzadeh was sentenced to death for war crimes at the age of 17, and Shayan Saeedpour was sentenced to death for murder during a fight at the age of 17.
According to Mr. Milani, the use of child soldiers is another issue in which the Islamic Republic acts in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and sends people under the age of 18 as soldiers to countries such as Syria.
Source: Voice of America
