UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein put out a statement on April 14th urging Iran to stop executing people for drug offenses until its government talks about a new law that would completely get rid of the death penalty for drug-related crimes. The statements came following the execution of five men over the weekend, three of which were trafficking drugs.
In one of the cases that the five men were executed, one where someone was executed for having crystal meth, there were legitimate worries about the fairness of the trail and denial of the right to appeal. The statement highlighted that in 2015, there were at least 966 people put to death in Iran, which is more than they have had in the last twenty years. Most of these people were related to narcotic offenses and at least four of those people put to death last year were juveniles.
In January, members of the government proposed a bill that would add to the required death penalty for drug offenses, making it possible for incarceration instead. However, nobody is suing whether or not Iran’s very moderate government is going to approve of the bill or not.
According to High Commissioner Zeid, “There have been encouraging signs from within Iran towards reform of the law, from the judiciary, the executive, and the legislature, and I hope the new parliament will adopt these changes. But it is unfortunate that executions for drug-related offenses—crimes that clearly do not meet the threshold under international human rights law for application of the death penalty—continue to be carried out in the meantime. Given the broadening recognition in Iran that the death penalty does not deter drug crime and that anti-narcotics laws need to be reformed, I call on Iran to take the important first step of instituting a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.”
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