Iran Executes 5th Juvenile Offender of 2009
Amnesty International has condemned the execution of an alleged juvenile
offender in Iran on Thursday, at least the fifth such execution in
2009.
Mosleh Zamani was hanged at Dizel Abad Prison at 4am, along with
four other unidentified prisoners.
He was sentenced to death in 2006 for
allegedly raping his girlfriend when he was 17.
"Once again, despite
domestic and international calls for the Iranian authorities to uphold their
international obligations, they have executed someone who was under 18 at the
time of his alleged crime," said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty
International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme. "How many more will die
before Iran stops this dreadful practice?"
Mosleh Zamani’s death brings
the number of alleged juvenile offenders executed in Iran since 1990 to at least
46.
Amnesty International was told that 200 people demonstrated outside
the prison on Wednesday in protest at the executions.
The organization
has called since 2007 for Mosleh Zamani’s death sentence to be
overturned.
Iran is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC). Both of these prohibit the use of the death penalty against juvenile
offenders, people under 18 at the time of the offence of which they have been
convicted.
Iran is one of very few countries in the world that still
execute juvenile offenders.
According to Amnesty International's
information, Mosleh Zamani was convicted of abducting a woman several years
older than him, with whom he was allegedly having a relationship, and raping
her. His death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court in July 2007. He may
not have had adequate legal representation.
Previously held in Sanandaj
Prison in Kordestan province, Mosleh Zamani was recently transferred to Dizel
Abad Prison in Kermanshah province, where he is believed to have been placed in
solitary confinement on 11 December 2009, frequently a signal that execution is
imminent. However, his execution was not carried out at that time, apparently
for medical reasons.
Amnesty International had also learnt that Mosleh
Zamani's alleged victim had asked that his life be spared, stating that they had
had consensual sex. The Appeal Court judge refused to take that into
consideration, stating instead that Mosleh Zamani should be executed in order to
"set an example" to other young Iranians.
"It is all the more important
in death penalty cases, where the accused faces an irreversible punishment, that
international standards for fair trial are observed," said Philip Luther. "Time
and again we hear of cases where proceedings do not appear to meet those
standards."
In many cases, juvenile offenders under sentence of death in
Iran are kept in prison until they pass their 18th birthday, after which their
executions are scheduled. In this period, some win appeals against their
conviction. Others have their sentence overturned on appeal and are freed after
a retrial. Some are reprieved by the family of the victim in cases of murder and
are asked to pay diyeh (compensation) instead.Some, however, do not benefit from
such measures and are consequently executed.
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that bunch of animals do in that country is a surprise. I used to think we were niave, but and more I think we chose to be ignorant so that we will not have to know. And Bush and a lot of other people have this pipe dream that they can be civilized. Not a chance.
American would have put him on a sexoffender registry with a felony and give him a fate worse than death. At least Iran was up front about it and more humane,
I hear that Iran is at the top of "Do Not Visit" lists for:
1. Gay Rights Activist Organizations.
2. Feminist Organizations.
3. Bnai Brith Anti-Defamation League.
4. Amnesty International.
5. Swimsuit designers.
6. Promoters of free speech .
7. Advocates of democracy .
8. Evangelicals of The World (including The Gideons).
9. Relatives of the late Shah Palevi
country? A bunch of fanatical, out of control people (using the word lightly) that have no respect for life, their own or others. As far as I am concerned as a race they are irrelavant!
They have come a long way since they were known as Persia.
1. They changed their name to Iran
2. They went from being an autocratic monarchy supported by the United States for business reasons, to being a theocracy with a marionette president who mouths the fanatical fundamental Islamist pablum.
3. They were not Arabs when they were Persia. Now they are trying to become Arabs.
I agree "alleged" is an inappropriate term to use in reference to a convicted rapist. I'd also tend to agree that in most cases, rape justifies the death penalty .
I've never been able to understand why a person under 18 should be held less accountable for violent crime than a person over 18. If the victim of a 16 year old murderer less dead than the victim of a 19 year old murder ? If anything, the double standard encourages juvenile crime. A young criminal knows he'll just get a slap on the wrist for acts an "adult" criminal would spend a long time in prison .
Without discounting any of the above, I'd also argue that because rape is a serious crime, deserving the harshest of punishments, it should also be subject to the highest standards of proof. There are way, way, way too many documented cases of false accusations of rape. They range from buyer's remorse the morning after consensual sex , to outright fraud to punish an innocent person for vengence or other reasons.
Amnesty makes an unholy amount of money promoting its theories of justice, which creates a conflict of interest when it comes to telling the truth. Let's face it, a dewy eyed peacenick is a lot more likely to donate money for "a little boy wrongfully accused of rape" than they are for a "violent, convicted sex offender".
Plus, it seems to me we have enough problems here at home, without worrying about some pissant third world country. Iranians are plenty bright enough to fix their own problems, if there really are problems, and if they're so inclined.
Pitying criminals due to their age was what got Gov. Huckabee in some hot water just recently when it was reported that Mike showed clemency to that alleged Coffee-Shop cop killer in his youth.
It just doesn't compute.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
After a person is convicted, and their case failing in a Court of Appeal, then the entire case confirmed by the Supreme Court, does it really make sense to refer to the person's crime "alleged"?
Seems pretty reasonable to admit that their criminal activity was, in fact, well- a "Fact". No need to pooh-pooh the criminal by falsely introducing doubt as to his guilt by calling his crime "alleged".
Also, if rapists in America were punished by hanging, there would be less rape in America. Seems like America can learn a thing or two from Iran, only after we get off our high horse, that is.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
I have to support Babaroni in this debate. I do not support the death penalty in any case, but neither do I support criminals. I think they should be locked in prisons and not released when they commit heinous acts. What I take exception to in your argument, however, are two points made: 1) that the facts are proven as a result of surviving trial, appeal and supreme court review and 2) that the statistics prove a low crime rate.
To the first argument, it can never be proven 100% that a person is innocent or guilty. We see this in our own judicial system in which standards of proof have adjusted as we've learned more. There was a time when "witnesses" would suffice to convict and even execute someone, now we understand the role that psychology and bias plays in those "witness" testimonies. We thought DNA was as reliable as you got, but now we know that DNA is not foolproof. Further, the reputation of a court is important in deciding the level of trust we put into that court's decisions. Iranian courts seem often to move from a conclusion to the evidence. Iranian justice is harsh and I don't think America would benefit from importing it.
On the second point, you should keep in mind that statistics are at best deceiving. It depends on who is collecting the statistics and what agenda they are trying to promote (we all have an agenda). Consider the "low" crime rate in Japan, which does not usually take into account organized crime, because it is essentially allowed to go unchecked and when the organized crime syndicates kill someone, they often go missing rather than having bodies found, so none of these crimes are reported as such. We are once again forced to decide how reliable the Iranian government is in their reporting and as Babaroni pointed out, the President of Iran claims his country has no homosexuals , a point which is patently false (as evidenced by common sense and hangings for homosexual activity conducted in Iran) and puts a shadow across future claims the country might make.
It may be futile, on my part, since you seem to view the entire debate through anti-death-penalty lenses. We shall see.
1) You are trying to use common arguments against the death penalty in order to show that the convicted rapist might be innocent. This is improper because every case is unique, including this one, and general arguments against a certain type of punishment, however valid they may be, are invalid when applied to specific facts in an individual case.
2) I respect that you are taking into account agenda-pushing as it concerns the reporting of crime statistics. Broad claims to "low crime rates" fall flat when a nation ignores problem areas, like Japan ignoring organised crime. Specific rates, like " rape per capita" are more precise and in this case, it id widely accepted that Iran, like Oman, Saudi Arabia, and other nations with similar laws enjoy dramatically low rape rate, according to international bodies.
Just because Iran's President says things like "We have no homosexuals " (Which, when he said it, was obviously joking, if you watch the video .), does not lessen credibility. If it did, Obama saying that America has 57 states would lessen his credibility-- Or for that matter, Biden speaking in public (Or anywhere near a mic) would trash his credibility. It doesn't work like that, but can be useful for poking fun at them.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.