Two human rights organizations expressed their concern that the Islamic Republic of Iran still hangs individuals for crimes they committed as juveniles on Saturday, announcing that a 17-year-old who was found guilty of murder had been killed.
Hengaw and Iran Human Rights (IHR), two organizations headquartered in Norway, said in separate announcements that Hamidreza Azari was put to death on Friday at a jail located in the eastern town of Sabzevar in the Razavi Khorasan region.
Iran International, a Persian-language satellite TV program, also reported on the execution. According to the channel, Azari was the only child in his family and had begun working as a scrap worker a few years prior, despite his advanced age.
Hengaw and IHR both stated that he was 16 years old at the time of the crime and 17 years old when he was executed, citing documentation they had seen. According to reports, he was given the death penalty after killing a guy in a fight in May.
According to the rights organizations, Iran’s execution constituted yet another infringement of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that a child is anyone under the age of eighteen.
As per IHR’s data, at least 68 kids have been killed in Iran since 2010. “Iran is one of the few countries that sentences child convicts to death and executes more juveniles than all other countries,” the organization stated.
“In Iran, an individual needs to be 18 years old to obtain a driver’s license, but it’s only necessary to be 15 years old to be executed,” stated Mahmood-Amiry Moghaddam, director of IHR.
According to IHR, the most recent version of Iran’s penal law clearly states that a boy’s criminal responsibility age is 15.
According to the organization, Iranian media reported on the execution of a person going by the name of Hamidreza A., but they misrepresented his age as 18 in a “deliberate attempt to evade accountability for violating international laws”.
A guy in his early 20s who was the eighth person to be hung in Iran on Thursday was also killed in connection with a case involving months of widespread demonstrations that began in September 2022.
Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, was arrested in Tehran for allegedly violating the severe clothing code for women in the Islamic Republic. Her death while in detention served as the impetus for the demonstrations.
Campaigners claim that in response to the demonstrations, Iran is carrying out an unprecedented number of executions in an effort to scare the populace. IHR reports that at least 684 individuals have been put to death in Iran this year, mostly on drug-related and homicide-related accusations.
