Iran hangs 17-year-old for murder: rights groups

AFP | Paris

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Iran has executed a 17-yearold convicted of murder, two rights groups said yesterday, expressing outrage that the Islamic republic continues to hang people for crimes committed as minors.

Hamidreza Azari was executed on Friday in prison in the eastern town of Sabzevar in Razavi Khorasan province, the Norway-based Hengaw and Iran Human Rights (IHR) groups said in separate statements.

Persian-language satellite TV channel Iran International also reported the execution, saying Azari was the only child in his family and despite his age had already a few years ago started working as a scrap worker.

Citing documents they had seen, both Hengaw and IHR said he was 16 years old at the time of the crime and 17 when executed. He had reportedly been sentenced to death for killing a man in a brawl in May.

The rights groups said the execution marked another violation by Iran of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which defines a child as any person under the age of 18.

“Iran is one of the few countries that sentences child-convicts to death and executes more juveniles than all other countries,” IHR said, adding that according to its data at least 68 minors have been executed in Iran since 2010.

IHR director MahmoodAmiry Moghaddam added: “In Iran, if someone wants to get a driver’s license, they must be 18 years old, but 15 years old is enough to be executed.” IHR said Iran’s latest penal code explicitly defined 15 as the age of criminal responsibility for boys.