EXECUTION IN IRAN

Although officially outlawed since 1981, human rights groups claim a number of people are still being stoned to death in Iran.

This is likely due to the murky nature of Iran’s Sharia-based legal system where judges are only given vague punishment guidelines.

This includes ordering judges to simply to execute individuals according to “valid Islamic sources”, without specifying the approved methods.

While Iran denies the stonings are taking place, human rights groups say victims are wrapped in cloth and made to stand in a hole in the ground while stones are thrown at them.

The total number of executions carried out in Iran stands only next to China, whose population is over 17 folds greater. 

Iran Human Rights Monitor says many spend years lingering on death row where they are horribly tortured. 

This is said to include stripping prisoners and pouring boiling water on them, pushing needles into their genitals, ripping out finger nails and hanging them by their feet.

According to Amnesty, at least nine people died in custody under suspicious circumstances following their arrests in connection with the protests in late 2017 and early 2018.

Officials claimed some had committed suicide, claims which were disputed by their families.

Worryingly in 2018 the lawyer Mohammad Najafi was arrested, sentenced to 14 years in prison and given 74 lashes on charges including “disturbing public order” after revealing some of the victims’ bodies showed evidence of torture.

Amnestry International told the Sun Online: “For years, Iranian authorities have continued to display a gruesome commitment to the use of the death penalty.

The death penalty is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and Amnesty International considers its use horrendous in all circumstances.

“The Iranian authorities must impose an immediate moratorium on the death penalty with a view to abolishing it completely.”

A Human Right’s Watch spokeswomen added: “We have long called Iran to place a moratorium on executions, starting with executions of individuals who are sentenced to death for offences they committed as children.”