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As clock ticks toward another Trump presidency, federal death row prisoners appeal for clemency

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President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office is putting a spotlight on the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, which houses federal death row. In Bloomington, a small community of death row spiritual advisors is struggling to support the prisoners to whom they minister.  Ross Martinie Eiler is a Mennonite, Episcopal lay minister and member of the Catholic Worker movement, which assists the homeless. And for the past three years, he’s served as a spiritual advisor for a man on federal death row.
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Iran | 2 men executed on drug charges at Urmia prison

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Iran Human Rights (IHR); July 3, 2021: Death row prisoners, Nasser Azmoudeh and Shahriar Amiri have been executed in Urmia Central Prison. 

At least 42 prisoners, including one woman, have been executed on drug-related charges in Iranian prisons in 2021.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men were executed in Urmia Central Prison this morning. 

Their identities have been established as Nasser Azmoudeh and Shahriyar Amiri, who were on death row for drug-related executions.

Yesterday, IHR reported that the two men had been transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for their executions.

Nasser Azmoudeh and Shahriyar Amiri have been detained since 2018 and sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court of Urmia.

At the time of writing, their executions have not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

It has been almost four years since an article was added to the Anti-Narcotics Law in 2017 to limit death sentences specifically and provide a general degree of reprieve in some cases. 

However, while the numbers reduced that year, the death penalty is still being used in drug-related cases.

According to Iran Human Rights’ Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, at least 25 people were executed on drug-related charges in 2020.

However, at least 42 people have so far been executed on drug-related charges in 2021.

On May 3, IHR published a report on the death penalty in the first four months of 2021 expressing concern at the significant increase in the number of drug-related executions and continues to warn of the continuation of this trend.

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, July 3, 2021


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Urmia, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran
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