UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has condemned the execution of underage offenders in Iran, two of whom participated in COVID-19 prison riots, and reiterated her call upon Tehran to drop all such death sentences, her press service said on Wednesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd April, 2020) UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has condemned the execution of underage offenders in Iran, two of whom participated in COVID-19 prison riots, and reiterated her call upon Tehran to drop all such death sentences, her press service said on Wednesday.
"Despite repeated interventions and engagement by my own Office with the Government of Iran on this issue, the sentencing and executions of child offenders continue. This is both regrettable and, given the clear illegality of these actions, reprehensible. I repeat my call on Iranian authorities to honour its international human rights obligations, immediately halt all executions of juvenile offenders and commute all such death sentences," Bachelet said, as quoted in the press release.
According to the High Commissioner's office, inmates Shayan Saeedpour from the Saqez prison in Kurdistan Province and Danial Zeinolabedini from the Miandoab prison in West Azerbaijan Province were executed earlier this month after rioting against jail conditions amid the COVID-19 pandemic in March. Both of them were sentenced to death for crimes allegedly committed under the age of 18.
Bachelet said their deaths raised "grave concerns about the possibility of expedited executions of other death-row prisoners who were involved in those protests."
Another inmate convicted when he was under 18, Majid Esmailzadeh from the Ardabil prison in Ardabil Province, was executed on April 18, according to the press release.
Iranian law allows the death penalty for boys from age 15 and for girls from age nine. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and numerous other international institutions have repeatedly urged the Iranian authorities to release all death-row minor offenders and cease the practice of their execution.
