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Child Offender Mohammadreza Azizi at Imminent Risk of Execution in Shiraz

15 Oct
Child Offender Mohammadreza Azizi at Imminent Risk of Execution in Shiraz

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); October 15, 2024: Mohammadreza Azizi, a child offender on death row for murder, is at imminent risk of execution in Shiraz Central Prison. His execution is scheduled for Sunday, 21 October.

Iran Human Rights calls on the international community to do everything in their power to save Mohammadreza Azizi and stop executions in Iran. 

IHRNGO Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “In addition to the illegality of issuing the death sentence for offences committed under 18 based on international laws and Iran's obligations, the judicial process of Mohammadreza Azizi has important flaws. At the present moment, strong international reaction is one of the few ways to save Mohammadreza Azizi from execution. We ask the international community, especially the countries that have diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic, to use all their communication channels to save Mohammadreza's life.”

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, Mohammadreza Azizi who was 17 years old at the time of offence, is scheduled to be executed at Shiraz (Adel Abad) Central Prison on 20th October. He was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder by the Criminal Court. 

Documents verified by IHRGO show that Mohammadreza was born on 24 August 2003 and arrested on 19 September 2020, when he was 17 years and 27 days old. 

One of his relatives told IHRNGO: “Mohammadreza was recently transferred from the juvenile ward to Ward 10 and his lawyer has told his family that he is scheduled to be executed on Sunday.”

“Mohammadreza pulled out a knife in self-defence after he was stabbed in the thigh. But the court dismissed self-defence and issued the death sentence. Two eyewitnesses that the defence had introduced weren’t even called to testify in court,” the source added.

Furthermore, according to court documents obtained by Iran Human Rights, the Specialised Psychiatric Committee at the Shiraz Forensic Medical Organisation only asked the defendant his name and surname to determine his mental maturity and capacity per Article 91.

Article 91 of the IPC states that juvenile offenders under the age of 18 who commit hudud or qisas offences may not be sentenced to death if the judge determines the offender lacked “adequate mental maturity and the ability to reason” based on forensic evidence. The article allows judges to assess a juvenile offender’s mental maturity at the time of the offence and, potentially, to impose an alternative punishment to the death penalty on the basis of the outcome. 

However, Article 91 is vaguely worded and inconsistently and arbitrarily applied and often as a ticking exercise, where mental maturity is established with one question as with Mohammadreza's case. His defence had therefore requested that his case be referred to the Tehran Forensic Medical Organisation which was also ignored.

Between 2016 and 2023, Iran Human Rights identified 21 cases where the death sentences of juvenile offenders were commuted based on Article 91. In the same period, at least 31 juvenile offenders were executed according to Iran Human Rights’ reports. It seems that Article 91 has not led to a decrease in the number of juvenile executions. 

Iran is one of the few countries in the world that still carries out the death penalty for child offenders. On 16 September, child offender Mehdi Jahanpour was executed for murder charges in Shiraz Central Prison, the first recorded child offender execution in 2024. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which the Islamic Republic is a signatory to, prohibits the issuance and implementation of the death penalty for crimes committed by an individual below 18 years of age. 

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the Islamic Republic is also a signatory to, explicitly states that “Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age.” However, the new Islamic Penal Code adopted in 2013 explicitly defines the “age of criminal responsibility” for children as the age of maturity under Sharia law, meaning that girls over 9 lunar years of age and boys over 15 lunar years of age are eligible for execution if convicted of “crimes against God” (such as apostasy) or “retribution crimes”(such as murder). The Islamic Republic ratified the CRC with the reservation that "If the text of the Convention is or becomes incompatible with the domestic laws and Islamic standards at any time or in any case, the Government of the Islamic Republic shall not abide by it."