Authorities in the central prison of Karaj executed a prisoner for a murder he allegedly committed when he was 16.
The authorities executed 21-year-old Saeed Mohammadi on Friday, October 25.
As in previous cases, the execution has not been published in the state-run press and media.
Iran is one of only four countries known to have executed child offenders since 2013.
In Iran the death penalty can apply to children as soon as they are deemed to have reached maturity – for boys as young as 15 and girls as young as 9.
Javaid Rehman the U.N. special investigator on human rights in Iran told the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee on October 23 that Iran has executed seven child offenders last year and two so far this year even though human rights law prohibits the death penalty for anyone under age 18.
Javaid Rehman also said that he has “credible information” there are at least 90 child offenders currently on death row in Iran.
Rehman expressed deep concern at the overall use of the death penalty in the Islamic Republic, saying its execution rate “remains one of the highest in the world” even after a drop from 507 in 2017 to 253 in 2018. So far in 2019, he said, “conservative estimates indicate that at least 173 executions have been carried out.”
Among those to be put to death in 2018 was Zeinab Sekaanvand.
Convicted of murdering her husband at age 17, her detention and trial were marred by claims she was a victim of domestic violence and had been forced to make a false confession while she was denied access to a lawyer. She was executed on October 1, 2018.
