Deputy Prosecutor of Qom Province announced that Iranian authorities have amputated the hands of three alleged convicted thieves on September 21, 2017, according to the state-run irib news agency. There were no details on how the punishment was carried out and the state media did not elaborate or identify the prisoners by name.
Earlier this week, the state-run Rooz Plus reported on September 19, 2017, that a judge ordered the same punishment for two young men who stole from a meat store in Tehran. They were arrested while carrying bags of sausages. Their driver was also arrested. The two men were sentenced to have their fingers amputated while their driver was sentenced to flogging.
In a statement issued in January, entitled “The wave of floggings, amputations and other vicious punishments in Iran,” Amnesty International pointed out, “The authorities’ prolific use of corporal punishment, including flogging, amputation and blinding, throughout 2016 highlights the inhumanity of a justice system that legalizes brutality. These cruel and inhuman punishments are a shocking assault on human dignity and violate the absolute international prohibition on torture and other ill-treatment.”
