Friday , 29 March 2024

Iran: Two Juveniles Executed; One With Mental Disability

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – Two juvenile offenders were among the prisoners executed at Shiraz Central Prison on April 25. Both were 15 at the time of the arrest and hanged at the age of 17. One of them suffered from a mental disability.

Iran: Two Juveniles Executed; One With Mental Disability


Iran Human Rights (IHR) urges the international community to react swiftly and decisively to the execution of juvenile offenders in Iran. IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said: “Executions of these juveniles are among the many crimes that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the newly appointed Head of Judiciary Ebrahim Raeisi must be held accountable for. We call on the international community, particularly the EU and the Norwegian government to strongly condemn these executions and put the abolition of the death penalty for juveniles on top of the demands in their dialogue with the Iranian authorities.”

On the morning of Thursday, April 25 2019, two juvenile offenders were executed at Shiraz Central Prison, also known as Adel-Abad Prison. IHR could identify them as Mehdi Sohrabi and Amin Sedaghat. Amnesty International had first reported about the aforementioned juvenile executions. IHR can confirm the fact with some additional information.
Mehdi Sohrabifar was born on October 29, 2001, and Amin Sedaghat was born on September 28, 2001. The two cousins were arrested in the spring of 2017 for an alleged rape and robbery case. One of their relatives told IHR that they were innocent and the rapist was someone else involved in the robbery. “They were tortured in order to extract the false confessions,” the relative added.
According to the documents seen by IHR, Mehdi Sohrabifar had suffered from a mental disability and was studying at a school for exceptional students (See the Persian version for the documents).
Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Iran is a signatory to, the Iranian authorities have an obligation to not issue the death sentence for offenses committed under the age of 18. However, at least 7 juveniles were executed in 2018 in Iran.

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