Stop Child Executions organization welcomes with joy Iran’s
announcement to abolish juvenile executions.
According to Iran's Assistant Attorney
General for Judicial Affairs, Hossein Zabhi, a memorandum has been sent to all
bodies of the Judiciary in Iran to stop child executions and
instructed Judges to issue a maximum sentence of life imprisonment with
possibility of parole after 15 years in lieu of execution.
Over the last few years, Stop Child Executions has
continuously put pressure on Iran to abide by the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Charter of the Rights of the Child
(CRC) to which it is state party and put a permanent end to executions of
children who have committed an offence before the age of 18.
In September 2008, Stop Child Executions organized
“Ahmadinejad’s Wall of Shame" rally outside of the United Nations in New York. A
list of recommendations was issued urging Iran's Supreme Leader, Head of
Judiciary and the Parliament to immediately stop child executions and implement
the changes into law in Iran’s Parliament.
Stop Child Executions was also among 300 other
NGO’s from 82 countries who called on the UN General Assembly in its recent
annual debate on the Rights of the Child to take urgent action to end the death
penalty for minors.
SCE would like to congratulate and thank all
its supporters who have signed the petition including human rights defenders,
lawyers, government officials, and journalists around the world who have been
fighting along with them to end child executions in Iran.
While Iran is the worst offender of child
executions with over 140 minors on death row and six executions of children this
year alone, Stop Child Executions calls on other countries including Saudi
Arabia, Yemen, Sudan and Pakistan to follow Iran’s lead in calling for an
end to child executions.
All the volunteers at Stop Child Executions
wish this overdue decision would have been implemented long before and give
their condolenses to the families of the 26 minors who have been executed in
vain since 2005 and others prior to this date.
Stop Child Executions hopes Iran will abide by
their announcement and looks forward to seeing the implementations of its other
recommendations to Iran into law.
PowerPoint Presentation Online:
http://www.stopchildexecutions.com/solutionsPP_files/frame.htm
For more information visit Stop Child Executions
organization at
www.stopchildexecutions.com
