Amnesty calls on Iran to end child executions

Iran Focus: London, Jan. 16 – A top human rights group called Monday on Iran to end the execution of child offenders after death sentences were handed down to two teenage girls for crime they allegedly committed when they minors.
Iran Focus

London, Jan. 16 – A top human rights group called Monday on Iran to end the execution of child offenders after death sentences were handed down to two teenage girls for crime they allegedly committed when they minors.

Amnesty International said that the sentences were in breach of Iran’s obligations under international human rights law.

It called on Iran to suspend the execution sentence of 18-year-old Nazanin who was accused of stabbing to death one of three men who attempted to rape her and her 16-year-old niece in a park in Karaj in March 2005. She was seventeen at the time.

“Another child offender, 19-year-old Delara Darabi, was sentenced to death by a court in the city of Rasht for a murder committed when she was 17 years old. She denied the killing but the sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court at the beginning of January, though her lawyer is reportedly appealing the decision”, the group reported.

Amnesty International in a statement said, “In 2005 alone, at least eight executions of child offenders were recorded”.

It added that “over the past two years, the number of child offenders executed has risen”.