Press and Media
Foreign Policy Centre and Stop Child Executions launch new pamphlet: 'From Cradle to Coffin: A Report on Child Executions in Iran' by Nazanin Afshin-Jam and Tahirih Danesh
Download 'From Cradle to Coffin: A Report on Child Executions in Iran (2.91 megabyte PDF)
The last two weeks have seen the greatest social upheaval in Iran since the 1979 revolution. If the international community needed reminding about human rights abuses in Iran, the recent images and reports highlight the scale of the challenge. It is against this backdrop that the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) and Stop Child Executions (SCE) are releasing a major new report into one of Iran's longest running human rights problems: child executions.
'From Cradle to Coffin: A Report on Child Executions in Iran' lays out the shocking history of child executions since the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It highlights the fact that in a country where 47% of the population is under 18, over the last five years there have been 33 known child executions while over 160 juveniles wait on death row for 'crimes' including homosexuality, sex outside of marriage and apostasy. It was written by two Iranian-Canadian authors Nazanin Afshin-Jam, who addition to being President of SCE is a singer/songwriter and former Miss World 1st Runner up and Tahirih Danesh, FPC Senior Research Associate.
The report examines the Iranian legal system, its religious groundings and Iran's commitments under international law. It provides detailed case studies of young people who have been executed or are on death row. Iran has indicated its willingness to end juvenile executions but rhetoric must now be replaced with action. If Iran continues to execute juvenile offenders, which violates its obligations under international human rights law, such abuses should not go with impunity.
Dr Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize winner wrote in support of the report that: 'Children are not born criminals. When they commit crimes, everyone is guilty: The parents who have been negligent in raising them, the society that has been indifferent to their fate, and the government that has not fulfilled its duties.'
Christian Salazar Volkman, former head of UNICEF in Iran wrote in his preface that: 'The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the few states in the world that continues to execute children. This is in clear breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which Iran signed and ratified in 1994.'
The report makes a number of recommendations to the Iranian Authorities, the international community and to activists including:
- Ending child executions by amending and approving the Juvenile Crimes Investigation Act passed six years ago
- Training judges and lawyers to comply with the Iranian government's legal directives and rulings
- Allowing unannounced visits from the UN Special Rapporteur to visit Iran's prisons holding juveniles
- Encouraging Iran to comply with its existing international obligations and to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT)
- Supporting reform of the legal system by, where appropriate, offering international training and technical assistance to show how Iran's juvenile justice system can be improved.
- Examining targeted sanctions such as travel bans and asset freezes against those Iranian officials most responsible for perpetuating the child executions.
For more information or to arrange an interview please contact Adam Hug at the Foreign Policy Centre on 02077297566, 07590040975 or adam.hug@fpc.org.uk
Notes to editors
1. Nazanin Afshin-Jam will be available in person for interviews on both Monday 29th and Tuesday 30th June. Tahirih Danesh will be available for detailed discussion over the phone.
2. Journalists are invited to attend the launch event at the House of Commons. The event will take place at 6pm in the Thatcher Room in Portcullis House on Tuesday June 30th. The panel to launch the pamphlet will be Ivan Lewis MP, Minister of State for the Middle East; Nazanin Afshin-Jam; Geraldine Van Bueren, Professor of International Human Rights Law at Queen Mary, University of London; Tom Porteous, Director, Human Rights Watch UK; and Drewery Dyke, Researcher, Amnesty International. The event will be chaired by Alistair Carmichael MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Abolition of the Death Penalty. RSVP to events@fpc.org.uk
3. The term 'child executions' refers to those young people who have committed a capital offense while under 18. Of the 43 young people executed since 1990 for capital offenses they committed as minors, 11 were executed whilst under 18 and the remainder were imprisoned and the sentence carried out after reaching 18.