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Photographing the Community on Tennessee’s Death Row

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From 2010 to 2015 I was incarcerated in Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, the Tennessee prison that houses death row for the men’s system. On one side of a gate, 250 of us lived in a “support staff” unit working maintenance, landscaping, kitchen service or whatever else kept the facility operational. On the other side of the gate were maximum-security prisoners and those in protective custody, and a unit just for the condemned.

Iran Executes Finger Amputation Sentences on Two Brothers Convicted of Theft

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Authorities at Urmia Prison in Iran’s West Azerbaijan Province carried out the sentence of finger amputation on two brothers convicted of alleged theft.

Branch 1 of the provincial juvenile court ordered the amputation of four fingers from the right hand of each brother, Shahab and Mehrdad Teimouri. 

After the procedure, the brothers were transferred to Imam Khomeini Hospital in Urmia for medical treatment.

Originally from Sarpol-e Zahab, the brothers now reside in Malard, Karaj. They were arrested in 2019 on theft charges.

In April 2020, Branch 24 of Iran's Supreme Court, under Judge Mohammad Karami, upheld the sentence.

A similar sentence for co-defendant Ebrahim Khatibi was reduced to 20 years in prison.

According to court documents obtained by human rights monitors, Mehrdad Teimouri acknowledged involvement in theft but disputed the extent of the charges, reported the Hengaw human rights organization.


Iran: Finger amputation carried out with an industrial cutting machine


The country’s Islamic Penal Code provides for various corporal punishments amounting to torture, including amputation, flogging, blinding, crucifixion and stoning.

For certain types of theft, those convicted shall “have four fingers on their right hands completely cut off so that only the palm of their hands and their thumbs are left.”

The authorities use a guillotine machine to amputate the fingers (pictured).

Source: Iran Wire, Staff, October 30, 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: Urmia, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran
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