05 May 2009 :

following the execution of Delara Darabi in Iran, Hands Off Cain secretary Sergio D’Elia issued the following statement:
 “The brutality of the Mullah’s regime that many seem to notice only now after the hanging of the young Delara Darabi is not only the fault of religious Iranian fundamentalism. The European Governments, including Italy, also give consent through silence, tolerance and an excessive desire to please, and they succumb to the Iranian regime’s political and commercial blackmail.
The regime in Tehran poses a threat to world peace and security, and even more obvious are the acts it has practiced against its own people for decades. Instead of acknowledging and attempting to stop this, Europe credits Iran as a part of the solution to the problems in the Middle East when it is the main problem.”
With at least 350 hangings carried out in 2008, and at least 155 in the first four months of this year, Iran is second only to China in the absolute number of executions. However it is number one in the world for executions relative to the country’s population. With the at least 13 minors executed in 2008, Iran is the only country in the world to impose the death penalty on people less than 18 years of age at the time of the crime, a fact that puts Iran in open violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child that it has ratified. And not only hangings. Stonings were carried out in at least two cases in 2008, and there was also a case of people being sentenced to being tied in a sack and thrown off a cliff.