Juvenile offender at imminent risk as Iran continues execution spree

29 July 2015 - Salar Shadizadi scheduled to be executed on 1 August for crime committed when he was 15 years old.
A juvenile offender in Iran is at imminent risk of execution amid a horrifying rise in the number of executions in the country, Amnesty International said today.
Salar Shadizadi, who is now 24, is due to be hanged on Saturday 1 August, after he was convicted of murdering a friend in 2007. He was 15 years old at the time of the offence.
“To execute Salar Shadizadi, who was a child at the time of his arrest, flies in the face of international law. The Iranian authorities must immediately halt any plans to carry out the execution and ensure that Salar Shadizadi’s death sentence is commuted without delay,” said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program.
“The Iranian authorities’ pledges to respect children’s rights ring disturbingly hollow when they plan the execution of a juvenile offender just months before Iran’s review session at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.”
At least 72 juvenile offenders are believed to have been executed in Iran between 2005 and 2014 and at least 160 juvenile offenders are believed to be on death row. International law strictly prohibits the use of death penalty for crimes committed by persons below 18 years of age. 
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is scheduled to review Iran’s children’s rights record in January 2016.
Earlier this month, Amnesty International exposed the shocking surge in executions in Iran during 2015. The reasons behind this year’s spike are unclear but the majority of those put to death in 2015 were convicted on drug charges.