Growing Up on Death Row: The Death Penalty and Juvenile Offenders in Iran 
 
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 Scores of youths in Iran are languishing on death row for crimes committed under the age of 18, said Amnesty International in a new report published today. The report debunks recent attempts by Iran’s authorities to whitewash their continuing violations of children’s rights and deflect criticism of their appalling record as one of the world’s last executioners of juvenile offenders. 
 
 Growing Up on Death Row: The Death Penalty and Juvenile Offenders in Iran reveals that Iran has continued to consign juvenile offenders to the gallows, while trumpeting as major advances, piecemeal reforms that fail to abolish the death penalty against juvenile offenders. 
 
 “This report sheds light on Iran’s shameful disregard for the rights of children. Iran is one of the few countries that continues to execute juvenile offenders in blatant violation of the absolute legal prohibition on the use of the death penalty against people under the age of 18 years at the time of the crime,” said Said Boumedouha, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program. 
 
 “Despite some juvenile justice reforms, Iran continues to lag behind the rest of the world, maintaining laws that permit girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 to be sentenced to death.” 
 
 In recent years the Iranian authorities have celebrated changes to the country’s 2013 Islamic Penal Code that allow judges to replace the death penalty with an alternative punishment based on a discretionary assessment of juvenile offenders’ mental growth and maturity at the time of the crime. However, these measures are far from a cause for celebration. In fact, they lay bare Iran’s ongoing failure to respect a pledge that it undertook over two decades ago, when it ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to abolish the use of death penalty against juvenile offenders completely. 
 
 As a state party to the CRC Iran is legally obliged to treat everyone under the age of 18 as a child and ensure that they are never subject to the death penalty nor to life imprisonment without possibility of release. 
 
 However, Amnesty International’s report lists 73 executions of juvenile offenders which took place between 2005 and 2015. According to the UN at least 160 juvenile offenders are currently on death row. The true numbers are likely to be much higher as information about the use of the death penalty in Iran is often shrouded in secrecy. 
 
 Amnesty International has been able to identify the names and location of 49 juvenile offenders at risk of the death penalty in the report. Many were found to have spent, on average, about seven years on death row. In a few cases documented by Amnesty International, the time that juvenile offenders spent on death row exceeded a decade. 
 
 “The report paints a deeply distressing picture of juvenile offenders languishing on death row, robbed of valuable years of their lives – often after being sentenced to death following unfair trials, including those based on forced confessions extracted through torture and other ill-treatment,” said Boumedouha. 
 
 In a number of cases the authorities have scheduled the executions of juvenile offenders and then postponed them at the last minute, adding to the severe anguish of being on death row. Such treatment is at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading. 
 
 ‘Piecemeal’ reforms failing to deliver justice 
 
 Iran’s new Islamic Penal Code adopted in May 2013 had sparked guarded hopes that the situation of juvenile offenders under a death sentence would finally improve, at least in practice. The code allows judges to assess a juvenile offender’s mental maturity at the time of the offence, and potentially, to impose an alternative punishment to the death penalty on the basis of the outcome. In 2014, Iran’s Supreme Court confirmed that all juvenile offenders on death row could apply for retrial. 
 
 Yet almost three years after the changes to the Penal Code, the authorities have continued to carry out executions of juvenile offenders, and in some cases, they even often fail to informed the juvenile offenders of their right to apply for a retrial. ||||| (Beirut) – Iran’s judiciary should halt the execution of a woman convicted of murdering her husband when she was 17. The woman, who has admitted to shooting her husband while he was asleep, was married at 14 and is the mother of a 6 year old. Authorities have announced that she is at imminent risk of execution. International law strictly prohibits the execution of child offenders. 
 
 Authorities arrested Razieh Ebrahimi – also referred to as “Maryam” in the local press – four years ago after she shot her husband in the head as he was sleeping and buried his body in the backyard, a source familiar with her case told Human Rights Watch. Ebrahimi, who is in prison in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, admitted guilt but expressed remorse. She said she snapped after several years of physical and verbal abuse by her husband. 
 
 “Every time an Iranian judge issues a death sentence for a child offender like Ebrahimi, he should remember he is flagrantly violating his legal responsibilities to administer justice fairly and equitably,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “Iran’s judiciary should reverse its execution order of a child bride who says she was battered.” 
 
 A criminal court convicted Ebrahimi of murder and sentenced her to death. Iran’s judiciary rejected Ebrahimi’s request for a retrial despite the fact that she was under 18 when she committed the murder. 
 
 In early 2013, new amendments to the penal code went into effect, strictly prohibiting the execution of child offenders for certain categories of crimes, including drug-related offenses. No such prohibition exists, however, for children convicted of murder and a host of other crimes for which the punishments are fixed under Sharia law, including adultery and sodomy. 
 
 Under article 91 of the amended code, a judge may sentence a boy who is 15 or older or a girl who is 9 or older to death for these crimes if he determines that the child understood the nature and consequences of the crime. The article allows the court to rely on “the opinion of a forensic doctor or other means it deems appropriate” to establish whether a defendant understood the consequences of their actions. 
 
 Under Iranian law, in murder cases, the victim’s survivors retain the right to claim retribution in kind, to pardon the killer, or to accept compensation in exchange for giving up the right to claim retribution. The husband’s family has refused to pardon Ebrahimi. 
 
 A source familiar with Ebrahimi’s case told Human Rights Watch that prison authorities attempted earlier to carry out her execution, but when she informed them that she was 17 when she killed her husband they returned her to her cell. The source said that following recent changes to Iran’s penal code the lawyer requested a retrial from the Supreme Court on the basis that she had been under 18 and did not understand the consequences of her actions, but the court refused. 
 
 In an interview with an Iranian online magazine, Ebrahimi’s lawyer, Hassan Aghakhani, said that various branches of the Supreme Court have applied article 91 differently, and he hoped the judiciary could at the very least suspend his client’s execution until all branches of the court applied the article uniformly. 
 
 Since 2009, Iran has executed at least 10 child offenders, making it the country with the world’s highest number of child executions. In 2014 alone there have been at least three unofficial reports of authorities executing child offenders for murder and rape charges, despite increasing international and domestic pressure on Iran to end the practice. Human Rights Watch is investigating these cases to determine whether those executed were, in fact, child offenders. 
 
 Iran is one of only four countries known to have executed juvenile offenders in the past five years; the others are Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, as well as Hamas authorities in Gaza. Iran is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which bans execution of child offenders. Since 2010, numerous UN rights experts and bodies, including UN experts, the Human Rights Council, and the Human Rights Committee have strongly condemned Iran’s execution of child offenders. 
 
 In 2012 Human Rights Watch called on the Iranian government to amend its penal code to impose an absolute prohibition on the death penalty for child offenders. Human Rights Watch has also called on Iran’s judiciary to impose a moratorium on all executions in the country due to serious concerns regarding substantive and due process violations leading to the implementation of the death penalty. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because it is an inherently irreversible, inhumane punishment. 
 
 Under the Iranian Civil Code girls can marry at 13 and boys at 15. They can marry younger with the consent of their legal guardians and a competent court. International human rights standards recommend 18 as the minimum age for marriage. Child marriages violate many human rights, including education, freedom from violence, reproductive rights, access to reproductive and sexual health care, employment, freedom of movement, and consensual marriage. The statements of the children and women Human Rights Watch has interviewed in several countries illustrate the profoundly detrimental impact on their physical and mental well-being, and their ability to live free of violence. 
 
 “Iran’s judiciary should prove its commitment to protecting children – the most vulnerable members of its population – by calling a halt to death sentences for child offenders,” Stork said. ||||| Image copyright Thinkstock 
 
 A series of dramatic images of a public execution in Iran, which was stopped at the last minute, are being widely shared and discussed in the country. 
 
 First the empty chair, then the crowd of assembled onlookers, and the noose hanging listlessly. The accused man, Balal, is hauled out, blindfolded, screaming for his life. As he stands beside the noose, the victim's mother slaps him on the cheek. Then she pardons him, sparing his life. Seven years earlier, Balal had killed the woman's son Abdollah in a fight. They were both 17 at the time. 
 
 This sequence of Tuesday's dramatic scenes of a last-minute pardon was captured in a photo essay (you can see the images here) and by onlookers at the scene. And it's spread like wildfire among Iranians on both Facebook and Twitter. After China, Iran has the highest number of executions of any country in the world, according to Amnesty International. Most are done by hanging, and in many cases, the execution is in public. For murder, Iran uses the qisas system within Islamic law, which roughly equates to an "eye for an eye". Only the family of the victim have the authority to issue a pardon. 
 
 Those commenting on social media in Iran are almost universally supportive of the parental pardon, calling it courageous, honourable and moving. Many attribute it to the intervention of a famous TV football presenter, Adel Ferdowsipour. In an unusual move, on a recent edition of his show "90" he called for people to text in support of Balal's pardon. More than one million texts were sent according to the show. Some on social media called for the qisas system to be changed, and for a ban on the death penalty. 
 
 There's also a high-profile social media campaign at the moment to stop the execution of a 26-year-old woman, Rayhaneh Jabbari, who was due to be hanged on Tuesday for killing a man. She says it was self-defence and that the man was trying to rape her. Almost 140,000 people have signed an online petition, and at least two Facebook pages have been set up in her support. The prominent Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi has urged the family to pardon her, and the United Nations special rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed has called for a re-trial. 
 
 Reporting by Cordelia Hebblethwaite 
 
 All our stories are at bbc.com/trending 
 
 You can follow us on Twitter @BBCtrending ||||| Iranian authorities have today confirmed that a woman convicted of killing a man whom she said tried to sexually abuse her will be hanged tomorrow morning at a prison west of Tehran, Amnesty International said. 
 
 Reyhaneh Jabbari was sentenced to death in 2009 after a deeply flawed investigation and trial which failed to examine all of the evidence. 
 
 “This abhorrent execution must not be allowed to take place, particularly when there are serious doubts about the circumstances of the killing,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International. 
 
 “Instead of continuing to execute people, authorities in Iran should reform their judicial system, which dangerously relies on processes which fail to meet international law and standards for fair trial.” 
 
 “Under international human rights standards people charged with crimes punishable by death are entitled to the strictest observance of all fair trial guarantees.” 
 
 Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, was arrested in 2007 for the murder of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former employee of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. She was placed in solitary confinement for two months, where she did not have access to a lawyer or her family. Reyhaneh Jabbari was sentenced to death under qesas (“retribution-in-kind”) by a criminal court in Tehran in 2009. 
 
 Amnesty International understands that although Reyhaneh Jabbari admitted to stabbing the man once from the back, she said another man who was also in the house killed Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi. Her claim is believed to have never been properly investigated. 
 
 “Authorities in Iran must immediately halt Reyhaneh Jabbari’s execution. It is unacceptable that she was not provided with a lawyer during questioning and the failure to investigate the presence of another man in the house leaves too many questions unanswered,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui. 
 
 Reyhaneh Jabbari’s mother said today in a Facebook post that authorities in Evin prison told her she would have to go to the facility to “collect the body” tomorrow. 
 
 Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime; guilt, innocence or other characteristics of the individual; or the method used by the state to carry out the execution, because the death penalty violates the right to life as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. 
 
 Background Information 
 
 On 14 September 2014, the judicial authorities reportedly pressured Reyhaneh Jabbari to remove her lawyer Mohammad Ali Jedari Foroughi from her case and retain an inexperienced lawyer in his place. This was done in an apparent bid to disrupt the lawyer’s efforts to guarantee an investigation into the presence of another man in the house. 
 
 Amnesty International understands that before being removed from her case, Mohammad Ali Jedari Foroughi’s repeated requests to meet with his client, and access her court file had been denied. ||||| Razieh Ebrahimi was forced to marry at the age of 14, became a mother at 15, and killed her husband at 17. Now at 21, she is on Iran's death row. 
 
 Ebrahimi, who shot dead her husband while he was sleeping, faces imminent execution, despite international laws prohibiting execution for crimes committed by juveniles. 
 
 Human Rights Watch, has urged Iran's judiciary to halt the execution. Earlier this week, Ebrahimi's lawyer also asked judges to consider a retrial, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported. 
 
 "I married our neighbour's son when I was only 14 because my dad insisted," Ebrahimi was quoted as telling officials working on her case, according to Mehr. "My dad insisted I should marry him because he was educated and was working as a teacher. I was 15 when I gave birth to my child." Her child is believed to be now six years old. 
 
 "I didn't know who I am or what is life all about," she said soon after being arrested. "My husband mistreated me. He used any excuse to insult me, even attacking me physically." 
 
 Ebrahimi is said to have admitted to killing her husband with his own gun before burying him in the garden. Ebrahimi initially told the police her husband was missing but her own father found the dead body and gave her in to the police. 
 
 Iran is signatory to the international convenant of civil and political rights (ICCPR) which prohibits death penalty for convicts if their act of crime is committed while they were under the age of 18. 
 
 HRW called on the judiciary, which is independent of the Iranian government, to reverse its decision. 
 
 "Every time an Iranian judge issues a death sentence for a child offender like Ebrahimi, he should remember he is in flagrantly violating his legal responsibilities to administer justice fairly and equitably," said HRW's Joe Stork. "Iran's judiciary should reverse its execution order of a battered child bride." 
 
 Althought a death penalty for Ebrahimi was handed down by the judges, her victim's family have until the very last minute to pardon her, a decision they have so far refused. Under Iranian law the victim's family have a final say over the death penalty. 
 
 In April an Iranian mother pardoned the man who had killed her sonjust moments before he was to be executed. Samereh Alinejad's act of forgiveness, has since inspired dozens of other families across Iran to pardon convicts at last minute. 
 
 Iran's judicial authorities have previously denied accusations of juvenile executions, but according to HRW, the country has executed at least 10 juvenile offenders since 2009. 
 
 The dispute appears to arise from Iran's own definition of a juvenile. The country does not provide a clear distinction between the age of majority – when minors cease to legally be considered children – and the minimum age of criminal responsibility, which is 15 for boys and nine for girls under Iranian law. Under the current civil code, girls can marry at 13 and boys at 15, HRW said. 
 
 In 2013, Iran and Iraq were responsible for more than two-thirds of the executions that happened worldwide, according to Amnesty. Iran says most of its executions are related to drug-offences. 
 
 Shadi Sadr, a London-based Iranian lawyer with the rights group Justice for Iran, told the Guardian that the case against Razieh Ebrahimi - also known as Maryan - underlined a hidden social and legal issue in Iran. 
 
 "Forced girl marriage in Iran is a hidden social and legal issue," she said. "However, it should be noted that Maryam Ebrahimi's case is not a unique case at all. This March, for instance, Farzaneh Moradi, 28, was executed for murdering her husband. She was forced to marriage at 15, gave birth at 16, fell in love with another man at 19 and was accused of murdering her husband at 20." 
 
 She added: "Women such as Maryam or Farzaneh, who are forced to marriage at childhood, are actually being raped constantly under the name of marriage. While they should go to school at that age, they are instead experiencing a life full of violence with no legal support. They eventually kill themselves or their husbands to end this vicious circle." 
 
 Sadr said Justice for Iran's research shows in 2012 alone, 1,537 girls under the age of of 10 and 29,827 girls between the ages of 10 and 14 were registered for marriage in Iran. 
 
 • This article was amended on 20 June 2014 to clarify that Razieh Ebrahami is also known as Maryam.
– More than 20 years ago, Iran promised it would stop executing convicts under the age of 18. But a new report by Amnesty International shows that not only has the practice continued into the present day—it's given Iran the dubious distinction of being "one of the leading executioners of juvenile offenders," the New York Times reports. At least 73 youngsters have been executed in Iran between 2005 and 2015, per the report, and at least 160 juveniles are now on the country's death row, and those are probably conservative numbers (the report notes actual figures are probably higher but unknown because info about the death penalty is "shrouded in secrecy"). And it's apparently much worse for girls than for boys, a deputy director for the group says. "Iran continues to lag behind the rest of the world, maintaining laws that permit girls as young as 9 and boys as young as 15 to be sentenced to death," says Said Boumedouha. This in spite of supposedly significant changes to the country's Islamic Penal Code—changes meant to offer judges "alternative punishments" to the death penalty when juveniles are involved. In fact, the need for those changes in the first place shows what a dismal failure Iran has been in dealing with this issue, since in 1994 it ratified its participation in the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that "neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed [on] … persons below 18 years of age." "The report debunks recent attempts by Iran's authorities to whitewash their continuing violations of children's rights and deflect criticism of their appalling record as one of the world's last executioners of juvenile offenders," the Amnesty report reads. (The Guardian features heartbreaking photos of female juveniles in Iranian prisons.)