Iran executes juvenile offender

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); September 25, 2024: According to newly obtained information, Mehdi Jahanpour who was executed for murder on 16 September, was 16 years old at the time of offence. He is the first recorded child offender to be executed in 2024.

Condemning Mehdi Jahanpour’s execution, Iran Human Rights draws the international community’s attention to the execution of juvenile offenders in Iran.

IHRNGO Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “The execution of child offenders is unlawful according to the Islamic Republic’s treaty obligations including the ICCPR and must be condemned in the strongest terms by the international community. There are currently dozens of child offenders on death row in Iran who may be executed should the international community fail to show an appropriate response.”

At least 71 child offenders have been executed since 2010, per data collected by IHRNGO.

According to newly obtained information by Iran Human Rights, one of the three men executed in Shiraz (Adel Abad) Central Prison on 16 September, was 16 years old at the time of offence. IHRNGO has verified Mehdi Jahanpour’s date of birth as 8 December 2002.

He was arrested for murder in April 2019 when he was 16 years old and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind).

An informed source previously told IHRNGO: “Mehdi Jahanpour was accused of killing someone with a knife in Firouz Abad. Mehdi was in love with a girl who had another man pursuing her. He stopped Mehdi in the street and a fight broke out which ended with the other man being killed.”

He is the first recorded execution of a child offender in 2024. His execution still has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Iran is one of the few countries in the world that still carries out the death penalty for child offenders. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which the Islamic Republic is a signatory to, prohibits the issuance and implementation of the death penalty for crimes committed by an individual below 18 years of age.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the Islamic Republic is also a signatory to, explicitly states that “Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age.”

However, the new Islamic Penal Code adopted in 2013 explicitly defines the “age of criminal responsibility” for children as the age of maturity under Sharia law, meaning that girls over 9 lunar years of age and boys over 15 lunar years of age are eligible for execution if convicted of “crimes against God” (such as apostasy) or “retribution crimes”(such as murder).

Article 91 of the IPC states that juvenile offenders under the age of 18 who commit hudud or qisas offences may not be sentenced to death if the judge determines the offender lacked “adequate mental maturity and the ability to reason” based on forensic evidence.

The article allows judges to assess a juvenile offender’s mental maturity at the time of the offence and, potentially, to impose an alternative punishment to the death penalty on the basis of the outcome.

However, Article 91 is vaguely worded and inconsistently and arbitrarily applied.

Between 2016 and 2023, Iran Human Rights identified 21 cases where the death sentences of juvenile offenders were commuted based on Article 91. In the same period, at least 31 juvenile offenders were executed according to Iran Human Rights’ reports.

It seems that Article 91 has not led to a decrease in the number of juvenile executions. The Iranian authorities must change the law, unconditionally removing all death sentences for all offences committed under 18 years of age.

Source: iranhr.net, Staff, September 25, 2024

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