EU lawmakers slam Iran over executions of juvenile offenders
Washington, 19 June (IranVNC)—European Union lawmakers today chided Iran for executing offenders who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes, the latest in a series of international condemnations of the practice.
By: IranVNC
Published: Friday, June 20, 2008
18:42GMT—2:45PM/EST
EUROPE – IRAN – JUVENILE – EXECUTIONS
Washington, 19 June (IranVNC)—European Union lawmakers today chided Iran for executing offenders who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes, the latest in a series of international condemnations of the practice.
The European Parliament “strongly condemns the death sentences and executions in Iran, in particular those imposed or carried out on juvenile offenders and minors,” according to the text of resolution coded RC-B6-0326/2008, adopted today in Strasbourg.
The resolution urged Iran to suspend the executions of juvenile offenders sentenced to death, and denounced “in the strongest possible terms” the hanging earlier this month of 17-year-old Mohammad Hassanzadeh in jail in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan Province.
Iran's Judiciary spokesperson Ali Reza Jamshidi has denied that the Islamic Republic carries out executions of individuals under the age of 18.
Iran has drawn sharp criticism from the international community in recent weeks over the issue, and earlier this week the New York- and Vienna-based rights group, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran published a list of 114 juvenile offenders on death row.
But not all cases receive such attention, a representative of rights watchdog Amnesty International today told IranVNC in an interview.
“Often times we as human rights organizations don’t hear about the case until months later because the cases are not internationalized,” said Zahir Janmohamed, Amnesty International’s Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Janmohamed said that Iran’s sentencing to death of juveniles stems in part from a “flawed judicial system” based on Islamic concepts of maturity – age nine to 12 for women and 12 to 15 for men.
“At that age they’re treated by the state as adults,” he told IranVNC.
“I understand in their system these individuals aren’t considered as minors,” Janmohamed said. “The problem is these individuals are often young, have left their family, don’t have resources to have a legal team.”
Janmohamed said Amnesty International and other international human rights organizations have often criticized Iran on this issue, but the execution of minors continues.
For their part, the EU lawmakers in their resolution urged Iran to address these legal shortcomings by passing the “pending reform of the Iranian penal code, with the aim, notably, of abolishing stoning and executions of child offenders, to move towards a moratorium on the death penalty and to bring Iranian legislation into line with international human rights obligations".
They also called on Iran’s lawmakers to decriminalize homosexuality, which is punishable by death.
On the issue of homosexuality in the Islamic Republic, Janmohamed told IranVNC that there has been an increase in gay men being rounded up in Iran and that the punishment has been increased in recent times.
“[They’re] being arrested, and oftentimes they report being sexually abused in prison,” he said.
“When you have a gay man who says he was raped in prison, there is a culture within the criminal justice system in Iran that allows a prison guard to engage in that behavior and not get punished for it,” Janmohamed added.
Sources: European Parliament website, IranVNC Washington correspondent
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