Iran children at the gallows

 ROME — As Iran currently executes the highest number of juvenile offenders in the world, hundreds of Iranian minors helplessly watch their childhoods pass them by, as they await their fatal ends behind bars.

At least 160 youths under the age of 18 currently await execution in Iran.
Shockingly, rights groups have reported that Iran has executed at least 230 people since the beginning of 2016.

While the majority of countries worldwide are fighting for the eradication of capital punishment against adults, Iran continues to sentence girls as young as 9 and boys aged 15 to death.
According to a recent report issued by Amnesty International, at least 160 young Iranians currently await execution.
Iran is a major perpetrator in this human rights violation against minors.
Iran’s brutal stance on the death penalty was brought to the fore this August, as Human Rights Watch reported on the mass execution of 20 felons in Iran’s Gohardasht (Rajai Shahr) prison on August 2nd.
Drug-related crimes are also among the host of “atrocities” to be deemed punishable by death.
Janat Mir, a young Afghani residing in Iran, was arrested for drug offences after his friend’s house was raided by local police.
Similar to the vast majority of young people in his grave situation, he did not have legal protection or consular services.
He is said to have been 14 or 15 years old when he was mercilessly executed in 2014.
Unfortunately, many convicted youths in Iran find themselves trapped in similarly hopeless situations to those described above.
Iran has consistently failed to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, by neither protecting nor informing minors of their rights and also refusing to put an end to the death penalty for minors.
Ironically, Iran often denies confining and subsequently executing young offenders.
In April 2014, the head of the judiciary, Sadeq Amoli Larijani, stated: “In the Islamic Republic of Iran, we have no execution of people under the age of 18.”
In this sense, it remains evident that the Iranian judicial system demonstrates a blatant disregard of its human rights obligations to children.
James Lynch, deputy middle East and North Africa director at Amnesty International, emphasized his belief that: “Iran’s bloodstained record of sending juvenile offenders to the gallows, routinely after grossly unfair trials, makes an absolute mockery of juvenile justice and shamelessly betrays the commitments Iran has made to children’s rights.”
The justice, freedom, and fundamental human rights Iran’s children behind bars have been so mercilessly denied of must be put to an almighty halt.

Source: News Day, 15 Aug. 2016