Iran hangs woman convicted of murder as a minor

[Nagishkaw 510]

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has hanged a young woman who was convicted of murder when she was a minor, her lawyer said Saturday, drawing condemnation from international human rights groups who have sought to end capital punishment for juvenile offenders.

Authorities executed the 23-year-old woman Friday in northern Iran without informing her lawyer or allowing the family to be present, said the lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei. She was 17 at the time the crime was committed, in 2003.

Iran executes more juvenile offenders than any other nation — eight last year and 42 since 1990, according to Amnesty International. Friday's was the second such execution this year in Iran, Mostafaei said.

While a few other countries are known to have executed juvenile offenders in recent years — Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan and Pakistan — Iran has accounted for more than two-thirds of such executions in the past four years, according to rights groups.

The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Iran has signed, bans capital punishment for offenders who committed crimes before their 18th birthday.

"Iran continues to deny that it executes juvenile offenders, but the secret nature of this execution demonstrates that the government knows that these killings are illegal and shameful in the eyes of the world," said Zama Coursen-Neff, deputy director of the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch.

The prisoner executed Friday, Delara Darabi, initially pleaded guilty to killing her father's cousin, but later retracted her confession and said her boyfriend carried out the killing. She told a judge that she had initially confessed because her boyfriend told her that, as a minor, she would not be executed and she could save him from being put to death, her lawyer said.

Her boyfriend, who was 19 at the time of the killing, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for complicity in murder.

The government-owned daily Iran reported the execution Saturday.

Iranian law requires authorities to inform a prisoner's lawyer at least 48 hours before an execution, but Mostafaei said he was not given warning that the sentence was to be carried out.

The lawyer said Darabi called her parents just moments before the execution. He quoted her as saying, "Oh, Mother, I see the hangman's noose in front of me. They are going to execute me. Please save me."

The woman's parents were not allowed inside the prison to meet her for a last time, Mostafaei said.

"She was denied a legal right guaranteed under the law," he said. "The hasty execution and the ignoring of legal provisions suggests that some authorities were happy to put an end to her life," he said.

Mostafaei said the execution of juvenile offenders is a "gross violation of international law" and a "breach of Iran's international obligations and commitments."

The European Union also condemned Darabi's execution, saying the punishment ran "counter to the international commitments that Iran has voluntarily accepted."

Mostafaei said the court did not seriously consider his arguments in the woman's defense.

For example, he said, Darabi was left-handed, while all the evidence suggests the crime was committed by someone who was right-handed.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-05...execution_N.htm

[tallcoolone 102]

I don't have a problem with this at all.

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Iran is so messed up! THEY NEED TO COME OUR OF THE DARK AGES!!!

[Mary Lou 681]

I don't have a problem with this at all.

I'm not surprised you wouldnt.

So rich coming from the man who married his wife to support his lifestyle.

It totally sickens me.

[Der Bücherwurm 1]

What's really sick is that when girls are convicted of crimes that are punishable by death in Iran they are routinely raped by prison guards beforehand. They don't want to execute a virgin because they think virgins automatically go to heaven when they die so they rape them to ensure they are punished eternally.

The majority of Iranians are sick of the regime but people are too scared to rise up. Also they don't have faith that anything would change for the better. They rose up against the Shah in 78-79 because he was a despot and they wanted something better. What they ended up with was even worse than the monarchy. Now, the Iranian people are just jaded and fear that if they ever overthrew the Islamic regime then another dictator just as bad or worse would come to power. So instead Iranians educate themselves so that they can immigrate to another country. No other country in the world since the breakup of the Soviet Union has had a greater amount of 'bright flight' (An exodus of the most highly educated.) than Iran. So it doesn't matter what the Ayatollahs or President do they are guaranteed to get away with it when all that remains in their country are those too uneducated, poor, jaded or scared to do anything about it.

[Shad and Dani 3]

They waited too long for the execution

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Unfortunately, Iran figured two easy workarounds to "Rights Of Child":

• hold convicted offender in jail until no longer minor (as in this case)
• fudge the minor's age, as done in the case of rape-victim Atefah Sahaleh

What's really sick is that when girls are convicted of crimes that are punishable by death in Iran they are routinely raped by prison guards beforehand. They don't want to execute a virgin because they think virgins automatically go to heaven when they die so they rape them to ensure they are punished eternally.

The majority of Iranians are sick of the regime but people are too scared to rise up. Also they don't have faith that anything would change for the better. They rose up against the Shah in 78-79 because he was a despot and they wanted something better. What they ended up with was even worse than the monarchy. Now, the Iranian people are just jaded and fear that if they ever overthrew the Islamic regime then another dictator just as bad or worse would come to power. So instead Iranians educate themselves so that they can immigrate to another country. No other country in the world since the breakup of the Soviet Union has had a greater amount of 'bright flight' (An exodus of the most highly educated.) than Iran. So it doesn't matter what the Ayatollahs or President do they are guaranteed to get away with it when all that remains in their country are those too uneducated, poor, jaded or scared to do anything about it.

Good points. Also, another factiod: Iran is probably one of the few countries from which significant numbers of people have sought refugee/asylum status in a much-less affluent "abroad" country--during the 1980's, over 10,000 Iranians were granted refugee/asylum status in India (likely others would have simply assimilated without bothering with paperworks, as Iranians can pass physically for North-Indian Muslims).