 |
"We urge the Iranian
authorities to stop the executions of Saeed Sedeghi and 10 other
individuals scheduled for Saturday 13 October," said the three.
The
officials are Ahmed Shaheed, special rapporteur on Iran; Christof
Heyns, an expert on extra-judicial executions; and Juan E Mendez,
special rapporteur on torture.
Sedeghi was sentenced to death on
June 2 for drug offences. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights says he did not receive a fair trial and was subjected to
torture.
The experts, appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human
Rights Council to report on specific human rights themes, said: "In
countries which have not abolished the death penalty, the sentence of
death can be imposed only for the most serious crimes, which do not
include drug crimes. Cases that do not meet these standards are
tantamount to arbitrary executions.
"We have repeatedly urged Iran
to halt executions. We regret, however, that instead of heeding our
calls, the Iranian authorities have stepped up the use of the death
penalty."
London-based human rights group Amnesty International
says that as of Wednesday it had tallied at least 344 Iranian executions
since the start of the year, including 135 that have not been formally
announced. The majority of those executed were convicted of drug
trafficking.
The 10th International Day against the Death Penalty
was observed two days ago, and the experts said they were "appalled"
that this event had been overshadowed by an increase in the number of
executions in Iran.
The overall global trend on the use of the
death penalty has seen the number of executions worldwide decline,
according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
An estimated 150 UN nations have abolished the death penalty or introduced a moratorium, either in law or practice.
No comments:
Post a Comment