IRAN: TEENAGE STUDENT HANGED IN FIRST CHILD OFFENDER EXECUTION OF THE YEAR

August 3, 2016: Amnesty International has revealed that a teenager has been executed in Iran after being convicted of the rape of another boy, the first confirmed execution of a child offender in Iran this year. 
Amnesty, which has been carrying out extensive research into the situation of child offenders on death row in Iran, found that Hassan Afshar, 19, was hanged in Arak’s Prison in Markazi Province on 18 July, after being convicted of “lavat-e be onf” (forced male-to-male anal intercourse) in early 2015. The execution went ahead even though Iran’s Office of the Head of the Judiciary had promised his family that they’d review the case on 15 September. Iran’s Supreme Court initially overturned the sentence due to incomplete investigations but ultimately upheld it in March. 
Hassan Afshar was arrested in December 2014 after the authorities received a complaint accusing him and two other youths of forcing a teenage boy to have sexual intercourse with them. Afshar maintained that the sexual acts were consensual and that the complainant’s son had willingly engaged in same-sex sexual activities before. (Sources: AI, 03/08/2016)