Skip to main content

Hangings continue unabated in Iran


Iran Human Rights, July 24: A woman identified as Sakineh Mohammadi, is in danger of being stoned to death by the Iranian authorities in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz, wrote the human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei in his weblog.

Mohammad Mostafaei who has taken the responsibility of defending Sekineh writes: Sekineh Mohammadi who has been in the central prison of Tabriz the last four years is convicted of adultry. She was previously sentenced to 99 lashes for adultry and the sentence has already been carried out.

Besides the lashes, she has also been sentenced to death by stoning. Teh stoning verdict has been approved by the supreme court and is in the section for implementation of the verdict, according to Mr. Mostafaei.

Mohammad Mostafaei has already written a letter to head of the Iranian judiciary Mahmoud Shahroudi, asking him to remove the stoning verdict.

According to Mr. Mostafaei, Sekineh is at imminent danger of death by stoning.

Iran Human Rights, July 23: A 21 years old man was hanged in the prison of Estahban (Fars province, southern Iran), reported the Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan today.

The man was identified as "Edris F." and convicted of sexual assault on younger girls, according to the report.

The report didn’t say when the alleged assaults had taken place.

At least 60 people have been hanged in Iran so far in the month of July 2009.

Iran Human Rights, July 23: One man was hanged in the prison of Semnan (northern Iran) early Wednesday July 22, reported the official Iranian news agency Irna.

The man was identified as "Mohammad Khalesipour" and convicted of murdering his wife according to the report.

According to the official reports, at least 59 people have been executed since the beginning of July 2009 in Iran.

Iran Human Rights, July 22: Two men were hanged in the prison of Isfahan yesterday July 21, reported the Iranian daily Etemad today.

The men are identified as Esmaeil (23) and Moslem (28) and were convicted of murder in two separate cases, according to the report.

At least 59 people have been executed in the first three weeks of July 2009.

Iran Human Rights
, July 22: One woman was hanged in the prison of Qazvin, west of Tehran, according to the Iranian daily Etemaad-e-melli. The woman who was not identified by name was convicted of murdering her father in law, but due to her econimic situation she couldn’t afford a lawyer to prove that she didn’t kill him delibrately, according to the report.

According to the Human rights activists news agency, she had been in the prison for four years and was hanged on Tuesday July 15.

Iran Human Rights, July 21: Four men were hanged in the prison of Qom, south of Tehran, reported the government newspaper "Iran", today.

The men were identified as Reza, Gholamhossein, Reza and Hossein, and were convicted of sexualt assault of a girl identified as "Narges" in 2007, said the report.

The report didn’t say when exactly the hanging took place. But it is believed that the men were hanged yesterday July 20.

Five other young men were executed in relation with the same case in May 2008.

All together 9 people have been hanged convicted of murder and sexual assault of Narges.

"Ali", the only surviving person in this case is waiting for the final verdict.

Iran Human Rights, July 15: Three people were hanged in the prison of Isfahan (central Iran) yesterday July 14., reported the Iranian daily Etemad.

The men were identified as Mohammadreza, Hossein and Naser and were all convicted of drug trafficking.

At least 53 people have been executed in the last two weeks in Iran.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, spokesperson of Iran Human Rights said: We are concerned about the increasing number of executions in Iran, which without any doubt are meant to spread fear amon the people. More people are in danger of imminent execution. The international community and UN must react now".


Source: Iran Human Rights, July 27, 2009

Comments

Most viewed (Last 7 days)

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Japan: Capital punishment for a minor

Death chamber at Tokyo Detention Center The Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the death sentence given in a lay judge trial to a 24-year-old man for murders he committed when he was a minor raises questions about the lay judge trial system and capital punishment. These include whether the lay judges correctly understood the spirit of the Juvenile Law in sentencing the defendant to death. It was the 1st death sentence handed down on a minor in a lay judge trial. The murders took place in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, in 2010 when Yutaro Chiba was 18 - meaning he fell under the purview of the Juvenile Law. Chiba was convicted of entering his ex-girlfriend's house and stabbing to death the girl's sister and a female friend of the girl with a butcher knife, seriously injuring a male friend of the sister and abducting the girl. Prosecutors said Chiba killed the victims because they were trying to separate him and his former girlfriend. Since Chiba pleaded n...

Texas: The inmates who refused to die quietly and had to be gassed out of their cells before execution

Former crime reporter Michelle Lyons, who witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, reveals the desperate acts of death row prisoners who refused to accept their fate After spending years or often decades locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day, most Death Row inmates go willingly to their executions. However, some refuse to die quietly - with officers forced to gas them out of cells, strap up their heads and even give chase across prison grounds. Michelle Lyons, who has witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, exclusively tells Sun Online how certain inmates "fight like hell" in their last moments. On most occasions, Michelle watched from the witness area, with the killers already on the gurney - the stretcher where they'd be given a lethal injection. Seven prisoners once tried to escape from the Row in Huntsville - with one shoving magazines and newspapers under his clothes to help him roll over razor-wire fences. Others have had to b...

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day.  DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case.  Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone.  Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m. 

Idaho | Death row prisoners sue over state's new firing squad

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Days after Idaho made the switch to a firing squad for executions, two Idaho death row prisoners next in line to be put to death sued the state prison system, saying its director withheld information about how she settled on the specifics for carrying out the method. Attorneys for prisoners Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto filed suit this week in state district court against Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick. In the filing, they called her approval of an updated standard operating procedure for the firing squad and lethal injection as a backup method “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion and in excess of the statutory authority of the agency.”

Florida executes Dennis Sochor

Man, 74, becomes oldest inmate executed in Florida in state’s 10th lethal injection this year  Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was 1 of 3 older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state.  Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party. 

Oldest inmate set to be executed in Florida will face strict spending limit for final meal

An entire category of food is also off-limits for final meal requests in Florida Florida is currently preparing to execute its oldest inmate later today (July 14), a 74-year-old convicted murderer who has been on death row since the 1980s—but his final meal will be limited by a strict budget. Dennis Sochor is scheduled to be put to death later today, making history as the oldest inmate to ever be executed in the state. The criminal, who has been on death row for nearly 40 years, will be administered the lethal three-drug injection, with the process due to begin at around 6pm.

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.