UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet voiced outrage Friday at the execution of two juveniles in Iran, describing this atrocity a “deplorable” act.
“I am appalled,” Bachelet said in a statement issued by her office on May 3, urging the mullahs’ regime in Tehran to immediately bring an end to all executions of people accused of committing crimes while considered being children or juveniles.
“The prohibition of executions of child offenders is absolute under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and under the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” she said.
Mehdi Sohrabifar and Amin Sedaghat were executed on April 25, after a trial that the UN rights office said appeared to have “seriously breached fundamental due process guarantees.”
“Iran is party to both human rights treaties and obliged to abide by them. These two cases are particularly outrageous because it appears that both boys were reportedly subjected to ill-treatment and a flawed legal process.”
The two boys were 15 years old when they were arrested and accused of rape and robbery in 2017.
According to information received by the UN Human Rights Office, they were held in a police detention center for two months, where they were initially deprived of their right to a lawyer, beaten and reportedly coerced into making false confessions. The boys had originally denied all charges. They were later convicted and sentenced to death.
Bachelet said the cases of Sohrabifar and Sedaghat were particularly deplorable since “both boys were reportedly subjected to ill-treatment and a flawed legal process.”
The boys’ families had brought the case to the Supreme Court, which overturned the lower court’s sentence and ordered a retrial.
The lower court again convicted the boys and sentenced them to death.
“Apparently, neither the victims nor their families were aware that the executions were going to take place,” the rights office said.
The regime in Iran is a party to both those treaties.
Amnesty International has recorded 97 executions of people under the age of 18 in Iran between 1990 and 2018. The mullahs’ regime ruling Iran has been condemned over 65 times at the United Nations for its decades of gross human rights violations.