IRAN:
JUVENILE OFFENDER NEAR TO EXECUTION
Juvenile offender Salar Shadizadi is at imminent risk of execution for a murder
allegedly committed
when he was 15 years old. He is scheduled to be executed on 1 August.
Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case
information,
addresses and sample messages.
Salar Shadizadi was arrested in February 2007 on a charge of murdering a
friend. He was sentenced to
death in December that year, under the Islamic principle of qesas
(retribution-in-kind), by Branch
11 of the Criminal Court of Appeal in the northern province of Gilan. His
sentence was upheld three
months later, by Branch 37 of the Supreme Court. After several years on death
row, Salar Shadizadi
was transferred to solitary confinement on 7 July 2013 in preparation for
execution. The
authorities, however, halted the execution at the last minute and allowed Salar
Shadizadi to submit
a request for judicial review under Article 91 of Iran’s 2013 Penal Code, which
gives judges the
discretion not to impose the death penalty if they determine that a juvenile
offender did not
understand the nature of the crime or its consequences, or if there are doubts
about the offender’s
“mental growth and maturity".
Later that year, Branch 13 of Iran’s Supreme Court accepted the request for
judicial review and sent
the case back to the court of first instance to examine the issue of Salar
Shadizadi’s maturity at
the time of the crime. The court of first instance referred Salar Shadizadi to
Iran’s Legal Medicine
Organization (LMO) for psychological examination. The LMO found that “there is
no evidence to
conclude that Salar Shadizadi was insane at the time of the crime but examining
his mental growth
seven years after the event is impossible.” Based on this finding, Branch 13 of
the Supreme Court
upheld the original death sentence. In its reasoning, the Supreme Court stated:
“presumptively,
mental maturity is present after children reach the age of maturity [which is
15 for boys and nine
for girls] and the rebuttal of this presumption requires proof which has not
been established in
this case”.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Salar Shadizadi was arrested in February 2007 after his friend’s dead body was
found in a garden
belonging to Salar Shadizadi’s family. Salar Shadizadi was subsequently
arrested and accused of
fatally stabbing the deceased victim in the neck. The circumstances of the
crime are not clear to
Amnesty International.
Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format.
Names: Salar Shadizadi (m)
Issues: Imminent execution, Death sentence, Legal concern UA: 165/15 Issue
Date: 27 July 2015
Country: Iran
Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact!
EITHER send a short email to u...@aiusa.org with “UA 165/15” in the subject
line, and include in the
body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent,
OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action.
Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office
if taking action after
the appeals date. If you receive a response from a government official, please
forward it to us at
u...@aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action Office address below.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Please write immediately in in Persian, English or your own language:
* Urging the Iranian authorities to immediately halt the execution of Salar
Shadizadi and commute
without delay his death sentence to a term of imprisonment;
* Reminding them that Iran has ratified the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights
and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which strictly
prohibit the use of the
death penalty for crimes committed by persons below 18 years of age.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 7 SEPTEMBER 2015 TO:
Leader of the Islamic Republic
Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader Islamic Republic Street- End of Shahid Keshvar
Doust Street
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info_lea...@leader.ir
Twitter: @khamenei_ir
Salutation: Your Excellency
And copies to:
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Hassan Rouhani
The Presidency
Pasteur Street, Pasteur Square
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Twitter: @HassanRouhani (English) @Rouhani_ir (Persian)
Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani
c/o Public Relations Office
Number 4, 2 Azizi Street intersection Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Salutation: Your Excellency
Also send copies to:
Iran does not presently have an embassy in the United States. Instead, please
send copies to:
Iranian Interests Section
2209 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington DC 20007
Phone: 1 202 965 4990 I Fax: 1 202 965 1073 I Email: i...@daftar.org
Please share widely with your networks: http://bit.ly/1Msz9Wb
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this email to a friend"
link found at the very bottom of this email. Thank you for your activism!
UA Network Office AIUSA │600 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington DC 20003
T. 202.509.8193 │ F. 202.509.8193 │E. u...@aiusa.org │amnestyusa.org/urgent
***************
PAKISTAN:
SHAFQAT HUSSAIN’S EXECUTION SCHEDULED AGAIN
Shafqat Hussain’s execution is scheduled for the fifth time on 4 August. His
lawyers maintain he was
under 18 years of age when the crime was committed and that he was forced to
‘confess’ under
torture.
Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case
information,
addresses and sample messages.
A death warrant has been issued scheduling Shafqat Hussain’s execution for 4
August. This is his
fifth execution warrant in five months. Shafqat Hussain’s execution was last
scheduled on 9 June but
the Sindh prison officials granted him a last minute stay because he had
another appeal pending
before the Supreme Court, which was to be heard later that day. In the appeal,
Shafqat Hussain’s
lawyers argued that he was below 18 years of age when the crime was committed,
and his “confessions”
were extracted under torture. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal saying
those concerns could not
be raised at this stage of the proceedings. Shafqat Hussain’s judicial remedies
have now been
exhausted but an application for mercy has been submitted to the President, who
could still act to
stay the execution and commute his death sentence.
Last week, the Sindh Human Rights Commission (SHRC) responded to a petition by
Shafqat Hussain’s
lawyers that requested them to take notice of his juvenility claim and the fact
that his conviction
was based on a confession extracted through torture. The SHRC referred to the
previous handling of
the case as ‘careless’, and advised the Sindh Government to request the Supreme
Court consider the
evidence relating to his juvenility and confession extracted through torture
which was not produced
at the trial by the defense lawyers. The Sindh government has not yet acted on
the recommendation.
A government-ordered inquiry into Shafqat Hussain's age and allegations of
torture conducted by the
Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in April 2015 has caused controversy.
Reports emerged that
government officials intimidated witnesses and confiscated evidence during the
inquiry. The
Islamabad High Court initially said the FIA inquiry was “prima facie illegal”
as it was not the
appropriate body to carry out the investigation, but later dismissed the
application to take Shafqat
Hussain’s juvenility into account. Domestic and international law prohibit the
imposition of the
death penalty for crimes committed by people under 18 years of age.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Following the Pakistani Taliban attack on the army-run school in Peshawar on 16
December 2014, Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif partially lifted the six-year moratorium on executions,
allowing the death
penalty to be used in terrorism cases. On 11 March 2015, the Pakistan
government announced that it
was unconditionally lifting the moratorium for all capital crimes and
threatened to send up to 1,000
prisoners to the gallows who have exhausted all legal options and their mercy
petitions. In total,
Amnesty International has recorded 182 executions since the moratorium was
lifted. A temporary
moratorium on executions was placed during the month of Ramadan, but executions
resumed from 27
July.
Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format.
Name: Shafqat Hussain (m)
Issues: Imminent execution, Death penalty, Legal concern
Further information on UA: 59/15 (13 March 2015) and updates (1 May 2015, 1
June 2015)
Issue Date: 27 July 2015
Country: Pakistan
Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact!
EITHER send a short email to u...@aiusa.org with “UA 59/15” in the subject line,
and include in the
body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent,
OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action.
Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office
if taking action after
the appeals date. This is the third update of UA 59/15. Further information:
www.amnesty.org/en/documents/ASA33/1770/2015/en/. If you receive a response
from a government
official, please forward it to us at u...@aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action
Office address below.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Please write immediately in English or your own language:
* Urging the Pakistan authorities to halt the execution of Shafqat Hussain
immediately, and
re-establish the official moratorium on all executions in the country as a
first step towards
the abolition of the death penalty, in line with five UN General Assembly
resolutions adopted
since 2007;
* Calling on them to review all cases of all people under sentence of death
with a view to their
commutation, and ensuring that no one who was under 18 years of age at the
time of the crime is
sentenced to death or executed;
* Urging them to ensure that measures taken to combat crime do not violate
Pakistan’s obligations
under international human rights law and all safeguards guaranteeing the
rights of those facing
the death penalty are respected;
* Urging the Sindh Government to act on the recommendations from the SHRC and
requesting the
Supreme Court to consider the evidence not produced at trial.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 4 AUGUST 2015 TO:
President of Pakistan
Honorable Mr Mamnoon Hussain
President's Secretariat
Islamabad, Pakistan
Fax: 011 92 51 920 8479
Twitter: @Mamnoon_hussain
Salutation: Your Excellency
Home Secretary, Sindh
Mukhtar Hussain Soomroo
Karachi
Sindh
Pakistan
Fax: 011 92 21 9211549
Salutation: Dear Mr Soomro
Prime Minister of Pakistan
Muhammad Nawaz Sharif
Prime Minister House
Secretariat, Constitution Avenue
Islamabad, Pakistan
Fax: 011 92 51 922 0404 (PM Secretariat)
Twitter: @PMNawazSharif
Salutation: Dear Prime Minister
Also send copies to:
H.E. Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani, Embassy of The Islamic Republic of Pakistan
3517 International Ct NW, Washington DC 20008
Fax: 1 202 686 1534 I Phone: 1 202 243 6500 I Email:
i...@embassyofpakistanusa.org
Please share widely with your networks:
We encourage you to share Urgent Actions with your friends and colleagues! When
you share with your
networks, instead of forwarding the original email, please use the "Forward
this email to a friend"
link found at the very bottom of this email. Thank you for your activism!
UA Network Office AIUSA │600 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington DC 20003
T. 202.509.8193 │ F. 202.509.8193 │E. u...@aiusa.org │amnestyusa.org/urgent
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