FEATURED POST

Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

Published
Image
A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

Iran | Executions in Yasuj, Minab

Published
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); July 31, 2024: Heshmat Moradian, a man on death row for murder, was executed in Yasuj Central Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Yasuj Central Prison on 31 July. His identity has been established as 40-year-old Heshmat Moradian was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “Heshmat Moradian was arrested for the murder of his friend three years ago. They had got into a fight over financial issues.”

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Those charged with the umbrella term of “intentional murder” are sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) regardless of intent or circumstances due to a lack of grading in law. Once a defendant has been convicted, the victim’s family are required to choose between death as retribution, diya (blood money) or forgiveness. Crucially, while an indicative amount is set by the Judiciary every year, there is no legal limit to how much can be demanded by families of the victims. IHRNGO has recorded many cases where defendants are executed because they cannot afford to pay the blood money.

In 2023, at least 282 people including two juvenile offenders and 15 women, were executed for murder charges, the second highest number of qisas executions since 2010. Only 20% of the recorded qisas executions were announced by official sources. In 2023, Iran Human Rights also recorded 857 cases of families choosing diya or forgiveness instead of qisas executions.

Man executed in Minab


Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); July 31, 2024: Nabi Bakhsh Molazehi, a Baluch man on death row for drug-related charges, was executed in Minab Prison.

According to Haal Vsh, a Baluch man was executed in Minab Prison in Hormozgan province on 30 July. His identity has been reported as 61-year-old Nabi Bakhsh Molazehi who was arrested for drug-related offences in Minab five years ago. He was sentenced to death by the Minab Revolutionary Court.

Another Baluch man named Mahim Jangizehi was executed at the prison on 29 July.

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year since 2021. According to IHRNGO’s 2023 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 471 people were executed for drug-related charges, an 84% increase compared to 2022 (256) and about 18 times the average of drug-related executions in 2018-2020. In the first six months of 2024, at least 147 people were executed for the charges.

On 10 April 2024, 80+ Iranian and international organisations and groups called for joint action to stop drug-related executions, urging UNODC to make “any cooperation with the Islamic Republic contingent on a complete halt on drug-related executions.”

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, July 31, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________








"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: Iran
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

Published
Image
A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.
Read more

Kuwait | Six Executed, Female Convict Spared at Last Minute

Published
Image
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 5: This Thursday morning at exactly 7:00 am, the Criminal Execution Prosecution carried out the death penalty for six convicts at the Central Prison. Among those executed were three Kuwaiti citizens, two Iranians, and one Pakistani. However, the execution of a Kuwaiti woman, convicted of killing her friend, was withdrawn at the last moment after the victim's heirs accepted blood money and pardoned her. 
Read more

'Better off without it': Washington closes execution chamber at state penitentiary

Published
Image
WASHINGTON STATE — Fourteen years after the last death sentence was carried out in Washington, the execution chamber at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla was closed in a ceremony held Wednesday morning. Gov. Jay Inslee, who issued a moratorium on the death penalty ten years ago, said shuttering the chamber was the ‘final closure’ of the controversial issue in Washington state law.
Read more

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

Published
Image
The following document is a written record of convicted killer Hamida Djandoubi's last moments before he was guillotined in a Marseilles prison on September 10, 1977. This written record -- dated September 9 -- was written by a judge appointed to witness the execution. Djandoubi's execution was the last execution carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. Then-President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who had voiced his "loathing for the death penalty" before he was elected to office, flatly turned down Djandoubi's appeal for clemency and chose to let "Justice run its course", as he did on two previous instances ( Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977). Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was executed in Marseilles' Baumettes prison in September 1977. The following text was writ
Read more

MHA survey finds growing support among Singapore residents for death penalty in most serious crimes

Published
Image
SINGAPORE: More Singapore residents support the use of the death penalty for the most serious crimes, according to the findings of a 2023 Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) survey released on Thursday (Sep 19). A survey was first conducted in 2021 to "better understand public perceptions" and the ministry conducted it again two years later. According to the latest survey findings, 77.4 per cent of respondents strongly agreed or agreed with the use of the death penalty for the most serious crimes, such as murder and trafficking a "significant amount of drugs".
Read more

"Death chamber" permanently closed at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla

Published
Image
WALLA WALLA, Wash.-The "death chamber" at the Washington "State Penitentiary where inmates sentenced to death were executed, the last remaining one in the Washington Department of Corrections system, was taken offline on Sept. 18.  According to KING 5 reporting on the closure of the small room within the penitentiary, the closing is largely ceremonial, as Governor Jay Inslee instituted a moratorium on the death penalty in Washington in 2014.  In use since 1904, death row inmates had the choice of hanging or lethal injection in the small room within the penitentiary. 
Read more

As another U.S. state closes its execution chamber, Trump muses about expanding use of death penalty

Published
Image
11 executions scheduled before 2024 ends, and a Trump win could see federal executions resume in 2025 Washington's governor is set to attend an event at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla on Wednesday to mark the facility officially shutting down its death chamber. That same governor, Jay Inslee, issued a moratorium on executions early in his term, in 2014. Since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in the 1970s — after an eight-year pause due to legal wrangling over the issue — Washington has executed five people, but none since 2010.
Read more

Author John Grisham Comes Out In Defence Of Death Row Prisoner “Texas Is About To Execute An Innocent Man”

Published
Image
Robert Roberson, an autistic father wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in Texas based on the debunked “shaken baby syndrome” hypothesis, applies for clemency to stop his Oct. 17 scheduled execution. Bestselling author John Grisham has joined a group of high-profile politicians, lawyers, scientists and doctors defending a Texas man who is about to be executed after being convicted of a crime that never happened.
Read more

Taiwan | Most want to keep death penalty: poll

Published
Image
Two Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-affiliated groups yesterday urged the Constitutional Court to uphold the constitutionality of the death penalty, with justices expected to issue a ruling tomorrow. More than 80 percent of Taiwanese who participated in the organizations’ polls and group discussions said they opposed the abolition of capital punishment, the Chinese Association for Human Rights and Taiwan Deliberative Democracy Association told a news conference in Taipei.
Read more