death penalty news October 26, 2004
IRAN: Iranian bill aims to scrap death penalty for minors Iran has drawn up a bill, expected to be approved by parliament, scrapping the death penalty and lashings for offenders under the age of 18, a justice department spokesman said Tuesday. Not only would minors escape the most severe sentences for serious crimes, but neither the death penalty nor whipping would come into effect after they come of age, Jamal Karimi-Rad said. "By adopting this bill, we will aid an important development on under-age crime because the death penalty and lashing will no longer apply to minors under the age of 18," he said. Several Iranian human rights organisations have recently called on Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, head of the justice department, not to sentence minors to death. Shahrudi has recently taken a number of decisions edging towards a timid liberalisation of the conservative-controlled justice department. Last week, he quashed a stoning sentence for a woman convicted of adultery and an amputation sentence for a 20-year-old thief. In May, he also published a circular banning torture and upholding citizen rights, which the then reformist-controlled parliament passed into law. Under pressure from the European Union to reform its shaky human rights record, there has been no record of any stonings in Iran since late 2002. Murder, armed robbery, rape, apostasy and serious drug trafficking are all punishable by death in Iran. (source: AFP / TurkishPress.com)
