Crumbs of human rights

Today Amnesty International has issued a media advisory on juvenile offender Salar Shadizadi who is at imminent risk of execution. Salar Shadizadi, who is now 24, is due to be hanged on Saturday 1 August, after he was convicted of murdering a friend in 2007. He was 15 years old at the time of the offence. “To execute Salar Shadizadi, who was a child at the time of his arrest, flies in the face of international law. The Iranian authorities must immediately halt any plans to carry out the execution and ensure that Salar Shadizadi’s death sentence is commuted without delay," said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme. “The Iranian authorities’ pledges to respect children’s rights ring disturbingly hollow when they plan the execution of a juvenile offender just months before Iran’s review session at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.” At least 72 juvenile offenders are believed to have been executed

On 15 June, shortly after the day of solidarity with Iranian women (12 June), about three dozen people gathered at Amnesty International UK’s Human Rights Action Centre to take part in an event on women’s rights in Iran. They came to learn more about Iranian women’s fight for gender equality and take various actions for female human rights defenders. The evening kicked off with an excellent documentary by Sheema Kalbasi, which gave the audience a good overview on the restrictions imposed on women’s daily lives. With the help of this film, ‘Women on the Front Line’, we learnt about the discriminatory laws and practices that exist in the country, such as the fact that a woman’s testimony at court is valued half as that of a man. Or to name another typical example: the law says that the guardianship of a child is with her father. After the film, we turned to our special guests who enlightened us about the situation of women in some specific contexts. Our first speaker, Dr