Crumbs of human rights

In the past month, Amnesty issued several updates on juvenile offenders, who were about to face the gallows. Because of that, names like Salar Shadizadi, Saman Naseem, Alireza Shahi or Milad Azimi might all sound familiar to you – unfortunately. There have been some good news and some bad news, as well. As of the good, the execution of Salar Shadizadi has been postponed. This is to allow the murder victim’s family to pardon him. However, Salar remains at risk. The authorities should grant him a fair retrial, making sure that there will not be a recourse to the death penalty. As of the bad news: sadly, Alireza Shahi , a 25-year-old man was executed in the morning of 24 November 2015.  By now, Saman Naseem has become a person, whose fate we have been following closely. In this year’s Write for Rights campaign, you might already have signed a card for him or you might do so with your local group within the next days. Amnesty International is asking the Iranian regime ...

God save you from the execution The executions in Iran are never ending. We can also see a pattern that if EU officials travel to the country, the authorities threaten to execute even more people, especially juvenile offenders. A recent example is Salar Shadizadi, whose scheduled hanging coincided with the visit of Laurent Fabius (the Foreign Minister of France) and Federica Mogherini’s (the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy) visit in Iran. Thank God, Salar’s execution was postponed for the second time as well, but, unfortunately, no one knows for how long. As per Amnesty International, the Iranian authorities are believed to have executed an astonishing694 people between 1 January and 15 July 2015. This number is really terrible. Especially, if we think about how many of them could be juvenile offenders or innocent people forced to confess against themselves under duress. They have not even stopped the hangings for Ramadan this year, ...

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 ...