IRAN. HANGING OF TEENAGERS VIOLATES INTL LAW, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

July 28, 2005: Iran's executions of juvenile offenders on July 19 violated international law, Human Rights Watch said. The organization condemned the public hangings of two teenagers, aged 18 and 16, after they were found guilty of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy 14 months earlier. The older convict was 17 at the time of the offense.
"Death is an inhumane punishment, particularly for someone under 18 at the time of his crimes," Hadi Ghaemi, Iran researcher for the rights group, said in a statement.
"All but a handful of countries forbid such executions. Iran should as well."
In letters to Iran's president and the head of the country's judiciary, the rights group asked Iran to refrain from "inhumane" executions, especially of minors.
Besides Iran, only China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and the US were known to have put juvenile offenders to death in the past five years, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch has confirmed the names and ages at the time of offense of five juvenile offenders under sentence of death in Iran: Milad Bakhtiari, 17 years old; Hussein Haghi, 16 years old; Hussein Taranj, 17 years old; Farshad Saeedi, 17 years old; Saeed Khorrami, 16 years old. (Sources: Dow Jones International News, 28/07/2005)