Nazanin Afshin-Jam spoke with Reza Alinejad’s mother this morning who informed her that Reza’s file had been sent to Tehran and that decisions were being made. With the lawyers that are helping him in Iran and the support from the International communtiy, they are hoping for a positive outcome. Reza mother’s reported that her son is happier since having moved to a different cell in prison. He is a more comfortable with the new inmates that he has come into contact with and says there are not the same amount of fights that used to take place in his old division.
Nazanin Afshin-Jam also spoke with Delara Darabi’s mother this morning who said that Delara’s file seems to be stagnant and they have no idea what is taking place or what will take place. Mrs. Darabi admitted that although Delara seems to be happier with the environment of her new prison cell, she is still not doing very well, because “prison is prison afterall”. Her family tries to continue to bring hope to Delara.
Tag Archives: row
Another Child facing execution in Iran
Yesterday Nazanin Afshin-Jam received an email from Mr. Mahmoud Latif asking if she could help bring worldwide attention to the injustice to his son Mohammad Latif who was sentenced to death at age 14 for defending himself from an 18 year old boy named Mansour Kayaee.
The news came as another surprise because Mohammad was not on SCE’s list of children facing execution. According to his father, Mohammad was 14 years 11 month and 23 days old when he was attacked by Mansour and accidentally killed the assailant while trying to take the knife away from him. His father is extremely worried about Mohammad who is now 17 years and 9 months, which could mean that they could execute him in three months when he turns 18 years old.
Mr. Latif has written to the head of Judiciary Ayatollah Shahroudi, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the head of the Majles (Iranian Parliament) asking for help, however he has not received any replies.
The Supreme Court has confirmed the conviction saying that it was an intentional act. In his letters Mohammad’s father has stated that even according to Islamic Sharia laws of Iran Mohammad was not at the legal age of puberty (15 for boys).
Through official papers, The Ministry of Health confirmed that at the time of incident, Mohammad was not mentally considered an adult. Mr. Latif also has written confirmation from two Ayatollahs, Behjat and Makarem Shirazi, that if there was any doubt on the maturity of the convicted, they could not carry out the execution.
A separate examination was conducted a year after the incident which says that Mohammad was an adult because he was past the age of puberty and had hair on his body.
Nazanin Afshin-Jam spoke to Mr. Latif this morning, where he pleads with the international community to help save his son from execution. He said that his son has already spent three years in prison. When Mohammad was first admitted to prison, his father described him as a healthy boy. After spending 10 months in an adult prison in Arak, he was moved to a prison in Saveh with more juvenile offenders. He now describes his son as having lost weight, weak, problems with his vision and very nervous psychologically.
Nazanin Afshin-Jam immediately contacted attorney Mr. Mostafaei to see if there was anything he or his legal team could do to help Mohammad. Mr. Mostafaei spoke with Mr. Latif and will be visiting Mohammad tomorrow in jail and take a look at his file and see if there is anything he can do to assist Mohammad’s current lawyer.
Nazanin also sent the documents and the information about Mohammad to Amnesty International.
Stop Child Executions campaign urges you to take part in helping young Mohammad and the 73 other minors who are on death row in Iran. Please click on “how you can help” to learn more about how you can take action.
News Yemen: 9 children facing execution in Yemen
Some 500 children are currently in Yemeni prisons, often alongside adult criminals, says a new report 
on children, released by the Rights and Freedoms Committee of the Consultative Council.
Nine children from various governorates have been sentenced to death, though they are under the age of 18, says the report.
A total of 109 juveniles have been accused of serious crimes, including murder, manslaughter, and attempted murder.
45 of these children are between the ages of 12 and 15.
Some 66 childre
n are between 16 and 18.
The report criticized the way courts view the children as criminals, and said this resulted from the lack of specialised juvenile judges and prosecutors in some governorates. It also highlighted the need for female juveniles to be guarded by female police in all prisons. “The policemen are not trained how to deal with juveniles.”
The report also stated that many juveniles are held in crowded prisons in unhealthy and inhuman conditions, which risks their health.
Sources: NewsYemen, Yemen Observer
Execution of Yemeni boy postponed
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
AI Index: MDE 31/013/2007
UPDATE
10 August 2007
AI Index: MDE 31/013/2007
UPDATE
10 August 2007
Further Information on UA 79/05 (MDE 31/003/2005, 5 April 2005) and follow-ups (MDE 31/004/2005, 6 April 2005; MDE 31/008/2007, 1 August 2007; MDE 31/010/2007, 08 August 2007) – Fear of imminent execution
YEMEN
Hafez Ibrahim (m), age unclear
Relatives of the victim of the murder for which Hafez Ibrahim has been sentenced to death have agreed to a stay of execution until after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in mid-October. According to the Shariah law rule of qisas (retribution), family members of a murder victim are entitled to seek the execution of the person responsible. Alternatively, they may pardon them, freely or in exchange for diya (compensation). The victim’s family have previously refused to pardon Hafez Ibrahim, and he therefore remains in grave danger of execution.
President ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Saleh has reportedly appointed a committee to clarify Hafez Ibrahim’s age at the time that the crime of which he has been convicted was committed. Under Article 31 of the Yemeni penal code, if the age of the defendant is not certain, then the trial judge must determine it with the assistance of an expert.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: If possible, please send another message within the month. Alternatively, consider asking someone in your community to respond to this appeal as well as, or instead of, writing again yourself.
– Welcome the stay of execution granted to Hafez Ibrahim and the appointment of a committee to clarify Hafez Ibrahim’s age, and urge the President to commute his death sentence;
– Urge the President to commute all outstanding death sentences and establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to completely abolishing the death penalty, as called for by Paragraph 5(b) of resolution 2001/68 of the Commission on Human Rights.
APPEALS TO:
His Excellency General ´Ali ´Abdullah Saleh
President of the Republic of Yemen
Sana’a
Republic of Yemen
Fax: 011 967 127 4147
Salutation: Your Excellency
COPIES TO two or more of the following:
His Excellency Dr. Abdulla Abdulwali NASHER
Ambassador for Yemen
54 Chamberlain Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario K1S 1V9
Fax: (613) 729-8915
E-mail: info@yemenincanada.ca <mailto:info@yemenincanada.ca>
His Excellency ‘Abdullah al-Ulufi
Office of Attorney General
Sana’a, Republic of Yemen
Fax: 011 967 137 4412
Salutation: Your Excellency
His Excellency Dr Rashid Muhammad al-‘Alimi
Ministry of Interior
Sana’a, Republic of Yemen
Fax: 011 967 1 332 511
Salutation: Your Excellency
Her Excellency Houda ‘Ali ‘Abdullatif al-Baan
Ministry for Human Rights
Sana’a, Republic of Yemen
Faxes: 011 967 1 444 838
Salutation: Your Excellency
Thank you for your continued focus on Hafez Ibrahim.
Stop child executions NOW
Saudi Arabia – beheading in the 21st century
Last month Saudi Arabia in violation to its international obligations publically executed a child (Dhahian Rakan al-Sibai’i ) by beheading for a murder that he allegedly committed at the age of 15.
Sadly, not only were there not much official international government objections to this inhumane and illegal execution, but shortly after the execution the US adminstration asked the US Congress to approve an arms-sale package to Saudi Arabia and five other Persian Gulf countries that may total more than $20 billion, which happens to be the largest arms deal negotiated by the Bush administration. Last week also US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with King Abdullah and other Saudi officials in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.
There are currently at least two other child offenders facing execution in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has a systematic history of human rights and children’s right violations. Following is a history of beheading practice in Saudi Arabia:
Saudi Arabia – beheading in the 21st century. 
Saudi Arabia uses public beheading as the punishment for murder, rape, drug trafficking, sodomy, armed robbery, apostasy and certain other offences. Forty five men and 2 women were beheaded in 2002, a further 52 men and 1 woman in 2003 and 35 men and a woman in 2004. Executions rose in 2005 with 88 men and 2 women being beheaded and then reduced to 35 men and four women in 2006.
The condemned of both sexes are given tranquillisers and then taken by police van to a public square or a car park after midday prayers. Their eyes are covered and they are blindfolded. The police clear the square of traffic and a sheet of blue plastic sheet about 16 feet square is laid out on the ground.
Dressed in their own clothes, barefoot, with shackled feet and hands cuffed behind their back, the prisoner is led by a police officer to the centre of the sheet where they are made to kneel facing Mecca . An Interior Ministry official reads out the prisoner’s name and crime to the crowd.
Saudi Arabia uses a traditional Arab scimitar which is 1000-1100 mm long. The executioner is handed the sword by a policeman and raises the gleaming scimitar, often swinging it two or three times in the air to warm up his arm muscles, before approaching the prisoner from behind and jabbing him in the back with the tip of the blade, causing the person to raise their head. Then with a single swing of the sword the prisoner is decapitated.
Normally it takes just one swing of the sword to sever the head, often sending it flying some two or three feet. Paramedics bring the head to a doctor, who uses a gloved hand to stop the fountain of blood spurting from the neck. The doctor sews the head back on, and the body is wrapped in the blue plastic sheet and taken away in an ambulance. Burial takes place in an unmarked grave in the prison cemetery.
Beheadings of women did not start until the early 1990’s, previously they were shot. Forty women have been publicly beheaded up to the end of 2006. Most executions take place in the three major cities of Riyadh , Jeddah and Dahran. Saudi executioners take great pride in their work and the post tends to be handed down from one generation to the next.
Nazanin Afshin-Jam sends urgent letter to Yemen's President & officials
August 3rd 2007
To your Excellency General Ali ´Abdullah Saleh,
On behalf of the Stop Child Executions campaign (www.stopchildexecutions.com ), I would like to voice my concern for Yemen citizen Hafez Ibrahim who is in imminent risk of execution despite Yemen being state party to the ICCPR and CRC.
Article 6.5 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) declares:
“Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age”.
Article 37(a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides that:
“Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age”.
Hafez Ibrahim was sentenced to death in 2005 for a murder he allegedly committed when he was 16. His death sentence was ratified by the President and was reportedly scheduled to be carried out on 6 April 2005.
However the former Minister of Human Rights had told Amnesty International that after this UA was issued on 5 April 2005, she appealed personally to you to stay the execution. She also said that Hafez Ibrahim’s age was disputed. She undertook to seek commutation of the death sentence, by obtaining a pardon from the family of the murder victim. On 7 April 2005 you stayed Hafez Ibrahim’s execution to allow time for an agreement to be reached in the case.
Relatives of the victim have reportedly refused to pardon Hafez Ibrahim, and in July 2007 the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence against Hafez.
As a concerned global citizena and human rights activist, I urge you to prevent the execution of Hafez Ibrahim and prevent any further application of such penalties against child offenders.
Sincerely,
Nazanin Afshin-Jam
Co-founder of Stop Child Executions Campaign
www.stopchildexecutions.com
www.nazanin.ca
COPIES TO
His Excellency Abdullah al-Ulufi Attorney General of YemenHis Execellency Dr. Abdulla Abdulwali Nasher
Ambassador of Yemen in Canada
URGENT: Another Yemeni Youth facing imminent execution
PUBLI
C
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL Index: MDE 31/008/2007
1 August 2007
Further Information on UA 79/05 (MDE 31/003/2005, 5 April 2005) and follow-up (MDE 31/004/2005, 7 April 2005) – Fear of imminent execution
YEMEN
Hafez Ibrahim (m)
The Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence against Hafez Ibrahim. Neither he nor his lawyer was reportedly informed of the court’s decision until yesterday, when the lawyer learnt that the execution is imminent.
Hafez Ibrahim was sentenced to death in 2005 for a murder he allegedly committed when he was 16. His death sentence was ratified by the President and was reportedly scheduled to be carried out on 6 April 2005.
However the former Minister of Human Rights had told Amnesty International that after this UA was issued on 5 April 2005, she appealed personally to the President to stay the execution. She also said that Hafez Ibrahim’s age was disputed. She undertook to seek commutation of the death sentence, by obtaining a pardon from the family of the murder victim. On 7 April 2005 the Yemeni president stayed Hafez Ibrahim’s execution to allow time for an agreement to be reached in the case.
Relatives of the victim have reportedly refused to pardon Hafez Ibrahim, and in July 2007 the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence against Hafez.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Yemen has made significant progress in the prohibition of the use of the death penalty against juveniles, but courts continue to sentence children to death. The legal progress to prohibit the use of the death penalty against children followed the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) by the government in 1991. At that time the prohibition of the use of the death penalty against juveniles was limited to offenders below the age of 15 at the time of the crime. However, this categorical prohibition was extended in 1994 to include children below the age of 18 at the time of the commission of capital offences. This is stipulated in Article 31 of the Penal Code, Law 12 of 1994, and marks a positive progress bringing Yemen’s laws into line with Article 37 of the CRC and Article 6 (5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which categorically prohibit the use of the death penalty against anyone under 18 years of age at the time of commission of any capital offence.
Yemen’s legislative progress in this regard has not been consistently matched by the practice of the courts, which have sometimes imposed the death penalty on offenders who were below the age of 18 at the time of the offence.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send fresh appeals quickly:
- urging the authorities to protect Hafez Ibrahim from execution;
- expressing grave concern that the death sentence imposed on Hafez Ibrahim was upheld contrary to Article 31 of the Yemeni Penal Code, Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Article 6 (5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibit the use of the death penalty against juveniles and call for the death sentence to be replaced by a penalty consistent with international standards for the administration of juvenile justice;
– urging the President to commute all outstanding death sentences and establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to completely abolishing the death penalty, as called for by Paragraph 5(b) of resolution 2001/68 of the Commission on Human Rights.
APPEALS TO:
President: His Excellency General ´Ali ´Abdullah Saleh President of the Republic of Yemen Sana’a Republic of Yemen Fax: 011 967 127 4147 Salutation: Your Excellency . Attorney General: His Excellency Abdullah al-Ulufi Office of Attorney General Sanaa, Republic of Yemen Fax: 011 967 137 4412 Salutation: Your Excellency . Minister of Interior: His Excellency Dr Rashid Muhammad al-Alimi Ministry of Interior Sana’a Republic of Yemen Fax: 011 967 1 332 511 Salutation: Your Excellency . Minister of Human Rights: Her Excellency Houda ‘Ali ‘Abdullatif al- Baan Ministry for Human Rights Sana’a, Republic of Yemen Faxes: 011 967 1 444 838 Salutation: Your Excellency . COPIES TO: His Excellency Dr. Abdulla Abdulwali Nasher Ambassador for Yemen 54 Chamberlain Avenue Ottawa, Ontario K1S 1V9 Fax: (613) 729-8915 E-mail: info@yemenincanada.caThank you for standing by, ready to respond again on behalf of Hafez Ibrahim.
The Issue of Executions of under-18 in Iran:
Lost Childhood – Sentenced to death at 13
Iran is a signatory to Convention on the Rights of the Child but its laws continue to remain in contraction with CRC. According to the laws of Iran, the penal age for girls is 9 and 15 for boys. A girl who does not even have the right to hold a bank account, suddenly in the eyes of Islamic Judges is treated like an adult at the age of 9. Soghra Najafpour who was sentenced to death at childhood is an example of this injustice:
With long straight hair and frightened green eyes, Soghra is known by the volunteers at Rasht prison as the longest kept prisoner. She who was hired at the age of 9 as a servant in a Doctor’s home, but 4 years later she was accused of murder of the 8 year old son of the family. At the time 13 year old Soghra confessed to murder but soon after she denied any involvement and blamed her older boyfriend for it. Death of an 8 year old boy by a mature man rather than by a small framed, slim 13 year old girl seemed more logical and deserved more investigation but judges had already sentenced her to death and therefore discounted her story claiming that such man never existed and did not believe Soghra who said the reason for her initial silence was because she used to be in love with him.
That 13 year old child is now 30 years old waiting 17 years of her teenage years and twenties to be executed. Already once she was even taken to be executed but appealed last minute.
17 years later, she has lost her teeth, takes strong antidepressant medications, been under surgery a few times and her hand shakes at the age of 30. She talks about her childhood that how her poor parents in return for a sack of rice sent her to serve at the “Doctor’s” home and how at the age of 13 she was sentenced to death for the murder that she did not commit.
Soghra knows Delara Darabi, another prison mate who was sentenced to death at the age of 17. Unlike Soghra who did not have a chance to attend school, Delara has high school education and that is why she helped Soghra with filling out her legal paperwork. After all not only they were the only two children in that prison who were sentenced to death, but they both used to be in love with men who took advantage of their childhood innocence.
These days there is a small flicker of hope for Soghra: According to her attorney and children rights activist, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Soghra obtained a ruling for her release in return for approximately $40,000 bail but without any change in her execution verdict.
But Soghra’s family who live in a small village have no such financial capacity and therefore Soghra continues to live in the only home that she has known since the age of 13: Rasht Prison of the Islamic Republic of Iran.