Amnesty International says authorities in Iran and 35 other countries continue to use the death penalty for drug-related offenses in contravention of international human rights law and standards.
More than 700 drug-related executions were carried out across the world between 2018 and 2022, “disproportionately affecting those from marginalized sectors of society and often following proceedings that violated international standards for a fair trial,” the London-based human rights group said on October 10, which marked the World Day Against the Death Penalty.
In 2022, Iran’s 255 drug-related executions constituted 78 percent of the confirmed global total for these offenses, according to Amnesty.
Between January and the end of May 2023, the Iranian authorities executed 282 people, nearly double the number of executions recorded in the first five months of 2022, it said, adding that at least 173 of these executions were for drug-related offenses.
“In Iran, drug-related executions often followed flawed investigations by Iran’s anti-narcotics police and other security bodies,” the group said. “Trials for drug-related offences are held before Revolutionary Courts and are grossly unfair, with those facing the death penalty being denied access to legal representation and the courts using torture-tainted ‘confessions’ as evidence to convict them.”
Members of Iran’s “persecuted and impoverished” Baluch ethnic minority account for around 20 percent of the recorded executions in the first five months of 2023 despite making up only five percent of the country’s population, Amnesty said.
In Saudi Arabia, 57 people convicted of drug-related charges were put to death in 2022.
Fifty-four executions, including for drug-related offenses, were recorded in the country in the first six months of the year.
Amnesty highlighted that international human rights law and standards restrict the imposition of this penalty to “the most serious crimes” such as intentional killing.
The group reiterated its calls on governments of countries that still retain this “cruel punishment” to immediately establish an official moratorium on all executions, as a first step towards full abolition of the death penalty.
It also urged governments to shift away from punitive responses to drugs toward “alternatives that better protect human rights and public health.”
Source:
iranwire.com, Staff, October 11, 2023
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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
