A man in Iran is to be hanged for a second time after the first execution was botched by officials. Amnesty International called the case "ghastly" and called for Iran to stop the second execution. Philip Luther, director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa programme, said: "The horrific prospect of this man facing a second hanging, after having gone through the whole ordeal already once, merely underlines the cruelty and inhumanity of the death penalty. The Iranian authorities must immediately halt Alireza M's execution and issue a moratorium on all others. It is natural that the Iranian authorities must combat the serious social, security and economic problems relating to drug trafficking and drug abuse but the reliance on the death penalty to combat drug trafficking is misguided and in violation of international law. People want to be protected from crime, but the death penalty does not make societies safer. Carrying out a second execution on a man who somehow managed to survive 12 minutes of hanging - who was certified as dead and whose body was about to be turned over to his family - is simply ghastly. It betrays a basic lack of humanity that sadly underpins much of Iran's justice system.