DEATH PENALTY IN IRAN
According statistics from Amnesty International 2007 resulted in a significant fall in the number of registered executions worldwide and on 15th November 2007 The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution, regarding a moratorium on the application of death penalty – call for an end to all use of capital punishment. For 2007 the official statistics tell of 1252 executions in 24 countries, which is a fall of 21 % compared to 2006. This development in the number of registered executions and the attitude towards death penalty among the worlds countries, sharply contrasts the situation in Iran. In 2006 177 people where executed in Iran, while at least 317 people where executed in 2007, which is an increase of approximately 79 %. Amnesty International had registered 94 executions in Iran in 2005, and thus there has been an increase of 237 % in the number of executions registered in Iran from 2005 to 2007.
The number of executions in Iran makes up one fourth of the 1252 executions in 24 countries, which Amnesty International registered in 2007. Following China, with a population of 1.314 billion and at least 470 executions in 2007, Iran with a population of 68 million and thus at least 317 executions in 2007, is the country in the world that executes most people.[1]
Iran ratified The International Convention on Civil and Political Rights in 1975 and it ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1994. [2] During the Shah regime up until 1979 the death penalty was used, including towards political prisoners, but since then this practice has reached a completely different dimension.
Since the clerical regime’s takeover in 1979, the human right situation in Iran has been a recurrent item on agendas at UN’s General Assembly, and in 1983 the first draft resolution concerning the situation was put forward. Between 1986 and 2007 the Iranian regime has been denounced because of human rights violations almost every year, and 20 resolutions have been passed in UN’s General Assembly.
In outline, these violations of human rights, which occur systematically, include: suppression of freedom of opinion and expression and freedom of media, freedom of assembly and peaceful expression of political views; suppression of the rights of religious and ethnic minorities and the rights of women; the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment as stoning, public flogging, amputation of body parts and execution; a high number of executions in the absence of respect for internationally recognized safeguards together with the failure to comply with international standards in the administration of justice and the absence of due process of law.[3]
UN’s General Assembly passed the first resolution in 1986 expressing its’ concern regarding summary and arbitrary executions in the absence of the right to a fair trial. During the years 1993 to 2007 the clerical regime has been denounced 13 times in resolutions passed at UN General Assembly because of violations of human rights, these including a high or very high number of executions in the absence of respect for internationally recognized safeguards together with the failure to comply with international standards in the administration of justice and the absence of due process of law.[4]
In 1988 tens of thousands of political prisoners were executed on the basis of a religious decree (fatwa) issued by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, who at that time was the spiritual leader of the country – also referred to as ‘ The Leader’, which is the country’s highest religious and political authority. In a report to UN’s human rights commission (by Karen Parker, J.D. for International Educational Development – Humanitarian Law Project), it emerges that Ayatollah Motazeri, who previously has been nominated as successor of Ayatollah Khomeini, has released documents that indicate that as many as 30.000 political prisoners were executed in 1988 alone. The report describes the events in 1988 as a massacre of political prisoners and as a very distinct case of crimes against humanity. Furthermore, the report stresses that many of Iran’s present leaders, including the present spiritual leader of Iran Ayatollah Khamenei, and former president Khatami and Rafsjani along with officials still in charge of the Judiciary, played the primary role in this massacre.[5]
According the Iranian resistance, National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), more than 120.000 political prisoners have been executed under the clerical regime.[6]
OTHER SOCIAL CONDITIONS
In 2007 the population of Iran consists of 68 million inhabitants of whom two out of three are below the age of 30 and every second is unemployed. It is estimated that there are about 3 millions drug addicts in Iran, addicted to opium, heroin and crack, and that there are 300.000 prostitutes in Teheran alone, a city with about 14 million inhabitants. It is estimated that the inflation is at least 25% and that as much as half the Iranian population in the cities is living below the poverty line. In addition, Iran suffers from enormous ‘brain flight’, and it is estimated that every year 150.000 university educated people leaves the country.[7]
According to UN World Drug Report from the period 1999 to 2008, Iran in these years, is the country with the highest proportion of opiate addicts, with 2,8 percent of the population over age 15.[8]
NGOs estimate that the number of street children in Iran, officially listed at 60.000, has grown in recent years to 200.000 or more. Many of them are the offspring of Afghan refugees, while others come from families that because of social circumstances have bean forced to depend on their children to help with earnings.[9]
Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the head of the mullahs’ Judiciary, said on February 27, 2008, “The trend of court cases in the Judiciary is overwhelming. The creation of eight million court cases during the past year signifies a legal and judicial malady as well as a serious harm to society.” Shahroudi described the creation of eight million court cases in one year as a “fundamental problem,” and added, “In a country like India, with a population close to one billion, only four million cases are filed annually.” On December 18, 2007, Shahroudi had also said, “It is unfortunate that currently eight million cases enter the judicial system annually, which results from more than 1,500 types of offences outlined in Iranian legal codes.” Shahroudi stated that, in addition to these eight million cases, “currently, about four million cases are also overseen by councils formed to resolve disputes.” Thus, according to the regime’s head of Judiciary, the number of court cases in Iran is close to twelve million.[10]
According to ‘Reporters Without Borders’ Iran continues to be the largest prison for the press in the Middle East, and in the organization’s annual estimation on freedom of the press in the world in 2007 Iran ranks as number 166 out of 169 total countries. In August 2007 the organization told of 11 imprisoned journalists of whom at least 2 where sentenced to death and awaiting their penalties.[11]
EXECUTION OF MINORS
In a period of 2007 Iran was the only country who is officially still executing criminal minors - persons who have committed crimes before the age of 18. Governments in all other countries had respected ratified international agreements that ban such executions. In Iran girls come of age when they are 9 years old while boys come of age when they are 15 years old and then they can be sentenced death penalty. Amnesty International has released names of 71 criminal minors who are to be executed in Iran, and notes that the actual number can be far higher since many executions are carried out without being reported. Since 1990 24 criminal minors have been executed in Iran and 11 of these were executed while being under the age of 18, and the rest were detained on death row until they had turned 18. Still in 2007 three countries – Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen - carried out executions of persons below the age of 18 years when the alleged crime was committed, which is in defiance with international law. But according to figures from Amnesty International Iran has executed the highest number of minors since 1990, and has executed more minors since 2000 than all other countries together. [12]
Amnesty International points out that serious failings in the Iranian justice system commonly result in unfair trials, including in cases where child offenders and other defendants face the death penalty. These failings include: lack of access to legal counsel and to a lawyer of one’s choice; ill-treatment in pre-trial detention; allowing confessions extracted under duress to be used in proceedings; the use of detention centres outside the official prison system; denial of the right to call defence witnesses; failing to give adequate time to the defence to present its case; and imprisoning defence lawyers if they protest against unfair proceedings.[13]
EXECUTION BY STONING
Execution by stoning, is a punishment prescribed in Iran’s Penal Code, and it is meted out specifically for adultery by married men and women. The penal code points out that the stones are to be picked out so that they are big enough to cause pain, but not so big that they will cause death too quickly. This means that this method is specifically designed to increase the suffering of victims before death. Thus stoning is a particularly grotesque and horrific punishment, meted for an act that is not even a crime in most countries of the world. The majority of those sentenced to death by stoning are women.[14]
In December 2002, Ayatollah Shahroudi, head of Iran’s judiciary, sent out a directive for the judges ordering a moratorium of death penalty by stoning and the use of alternative penalties instead. Despite of this directive and other following recommendations and religious decrees from highly placed priests, stoning is still being carried out in Iran undaunted.[15]
In July and September 2007, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, leader of human rights committee of the clerical regime’s judiciary, publicly defended the use of stoning as penalty, and said this practice is not inconsistent with international standards of human rights.[16]
In January 2008, 9 women and 2 men were awaiting being stoned to death in Iran, and in February 2008 2 women and one man had their death penalties by stoning confirmed.[17]
Besides being hanged, this also in public, being shot and stoned, a person can be sentenced to death by being ‘thrown from a height’ or ‘a cliff’. In January 2008, two men, Tayyeb Karimi and Yazdan from Shiraz, were sentenced to death by this method, and the carrying out of there sentence is now impending.[18]
DEATH PENALTY IN IRAN’S PENAL CODE
The Penal Code distinguishes five types of crime: hodoud (crimes against divine will, for which the penalty is prescribed by Islamic law); qesas (retribution in kind, broadly akin to “an eye for an eye”); diyeh (compensation), ta’zir (crimes that incur discretionary punishments applied by the state that are not derived from Islamic law); and deterrent punishments, which include fines, cancellation of licenses, closure of business premises, forced residence, travel restrictions and denial of other rights (such as the right to work in a particular profession). The death penalty is provided for certain hodoud and ta’zir crimes, and is available under qesas for murder.[19]
Under the category of hodoud crimes, capital offences include adultery by married people; incest; rape; fornication for the fourth time by an unmarried person, having been punished for each previous offence; drinking alcohol for the third time, having been punished for each previous offence; “sodomy”; same-sex sexual conduct between men without penetration (tafkhiz) for the fourth time, having been punished for each previous offence; lesbianism for the fourth time, having been punished for each previous offence; fornication by a non-Muslim man with a Muslim woman; and false accusation of adultery or “sodomy” for a fourth time, having been punished for each previous offence. The law of hodoud also provides for the death penalty as one of four possible punishments for those convicted of the vaguely worded offences of “being at enmity with God” (“mohareb”) and “being corrupt on earth” (“mofsed fil arz”). These terms are defined in the Penal Code as “Any person resorting to arms to cause terror, fear or to breach public security and freedom will be considered as a mohareb and to be corrupt on earth”. Further articles clarify that those convicted of armed robbery, highway robbery, membership of or support for an organization that seeks to overthrow the Islamic Republic; and plotting to overthrow the Islamic Republic by procuring arms for this purpose will be regarded as mohareb.
As hodoud crimes are regarded as a crime against God, in the same way as ta’zir.[20]
In cases of qesas, where a victim is killed or injured, the sentence is retaliation or “retribution in kind”. This means that in cases of murder, the family of the victim has the right to ask for their relative’s killer to be put to death. The family can also choose to forgive the culprit and accept payment of diyeh instead.[21]
There is only one crime in the ta’zir section of the Penal Code for which execution is mentioned – “cursing the Prophet [of Islam]” (Article 513). On basis of this article heresy or apostasy, meaning giving up the Islamic faith or converting to another religion shall also be punished with death penalty.[22]
For more than 20 years UN has denounced the clerical regime in Iran because of gross and systematically violations of the populations’ most basic human rights, including a high or very high number of executions in the absence of respect for internationally recognized safeguards together with the failure to comply with international standards in the administration of justice and the absence of due process of law. In Iran death penalty is meted out for a wide range of more or less precisely worded crimes including adultery, homosexuality, heresy or apostasy, third time of alcohol consumption, murder, incest, conspiracy against the regime and rape together with “being at enmity with God” and “being corrupt on earth”. Besides hanging, also in public, shooting and stoning a person can be sentenced to death by being ‘thrown from a height’ or ‘a cliff’.
Under these circumstances the clerical regime was responsible for one fourth of all registered executions worldwide in 2007, with at least 317 executions among 1252 registered executions in 24 countries.
Pictures of public executions and humiliations are sometimes published by Iran’s state news agencies. Following links is to some of these pictures of public executions and humiliations. Caution is advised, as the pictures contain wary strong images.
Public humiliations – May 2007
- Link: http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=11305
- Link: http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=11307
- Link: http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=11309
- Link: http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=11311
Public execution – 1st August 2007
- Link: http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=11995
- Link: http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=11997
Public execution – 3rd August 2007
- Link: http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=12002
- Link: http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=12003
By Poyan Taherloo.
________________________________________
[1] Amnesty International: Death Sentences and Executions in 2007
[2] UN Human Rights – Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: Regarding Human Rights Situation in Iran (Islamic Republic of)
[3] Resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly on the Situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran: www.UNBISnet.un.org - United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library
[4] Ibid.
[5] Khomeini fatwa 'led to killing of 30,000 in Iran' - The Telegraph - Last updated: 19 June 2001;
Rapport to UN Commission on Human rights from 2001 - By Karen Parker, J.D. - for International Educational Development - Humanitarian Law Project;
'Crime Against Humanity' - By Foreign Affairs Committee of The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), 2001
[6] 'Islamic Fundamentalism - The new Global Threat' - By Mohammad Mohaddessin, 1993
[7] UN World Drug Report 1999-2005
[8] A generation of street kids hustling in Iran – Los Angeles Times - 22. april 2007
[9] Forbandet ungdom i Iran - Berlingske Tidende (Denmark) - 24 November 2007;
Iran's Sex Slaves Suffer Hideously Under Mullahs - Insight on the News - 23 July 2004 - By Dr. Donna M. Hughes - professor at the University of Rhode Island - Women's Studies Program
[10] Iran Liberation no. 261 – 10 March 2008
[11] Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007 - Reporters without borders - October 2007;
Two journalists under sentence of death now on 42nd day of hunger strike - Reporters without borders – 24 August 2007
[12] Amnesty International – Iran: The last executioner of children – June 2007;
Amnesty International - Death penalty: Executions of child offenders since 1990
[13] Ibid.
[14] Amnesty International – Iran - End execution by stoning – January 2008
[15] Amnesty International – Iran - End execution by stoning – January 2008
[16] Top Iranian regime’s official defends stoning - AFP - 15 July 2007
[17] Amnesty International – Iran - End execution by stoning – January 2008
[18] Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the EU concerning death sentences in Iran - CFSP Statement - 25 January 2008
[19] Amnesty International – Iran: The last executioner of children – June 2007
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid.; Briefing note on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran – FIDH – 25 October 2005
