Zeinab Sekanvand, who "committed a crime" as a teenager, was executed
One day after Amnesty International warned of the imminent execution of Zeinab Sekanvand, who had "committed a crime" as a teenager, news broke on Tuesday, October 1, that Ms. Sekanvand had been executed in Urmia.
Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director, said in a statement on Monday that "Iranian authorities must immediately halt the execution of Zeinab Sekanvand."
However, Zeinab Sekanvand was executed on Tuesday morning in a prison in the city of Urmia.
This is despite the fact that Amnesty International's statement on Monday stated that "Ms. Sekanvand was tried in 2014 without a defense attorney and the case is based on her confessions, which were obtained without the presence of a defense attorney."
Zeinab Sekanvand married at the age of 15 and was arrested at the age of 17 "on charges of murdering her husband."
Amnesty International had previously announced in a statement that Ms. Sekanvand claimed that before her husband's murder, she had been physically and verbally abused by him for months, and that her husband would not agree to a divorce.
Amnesty International said that Ms. Sekanvand confessed to killing her husband at the police station and was then “beaten” by police officers for 20 days.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has set the age of criminal responsibility for boys at 15 years and for girls at 9 years, while international conventions such as the Rights of the Child set the age of criminal responsibility for both sexes at 18 years.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has accepted this convention "conditionally".
Iran is one of the few countries where the death penalty for juvenile offenders is still issued and carried out after the age of 18.
International law emphatically and specifically requires countries around the world to refrain from imposing the death penalty on people under the age of 18.
Human rights organizations have repeatedly called on the Islamic Republic's authorities to stop executing underage criminals.
Source: Radio Farda
