Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned practice of killing a person as a punishment for a crime, usually following an authorised, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is condemned and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term capital refers to execution by beheading, but executions are carried out by many methods, including hanging, shooting, lethal injection, stoning, electrocution, and gassing.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. The convention defines a child as any human being under the age of eighteen, unless the age of majority is attained earlier under national legislation.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, electoral rights and rights to due process and a fair trial. It was adopted by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2200A (XXI) on 16 December 1966 and entered into force on 23 March 1976 after its thirty-fifth ratification or accession. As of June 2022, the Covenant has 173 parties and six more signatories without ratification, most notably the People's Republic of China and Cuba; North Korea is the only state that has tried to withdraw.
Nazanin Afshin-Jam is an Iranian-Canadian human rights activist, author, public speaker and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss World Canada 2003. She is also president and co-founder of Stop Child Executions, as well as the founder of The Nazanin Foundation. She immigrated to Canada with her family in 1981 and is married to Peter MacKay, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada.
Atefeh Rajabi Sahaaleh was an Iranian girl from the town of Neka who was executed a week after being sentenced to death by Haji Rezai, head of Neka's court, on charges of adultery and crimes against chastity.
The state of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran has been regarded as very poor. The United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission have condemned prior and ongoing abuses in Iran in published critiques and several resolutions. The government is criticized both for restrictions and punishments that follow the Islamic Republic's constitution and law, and for "extrajudicial" actions by state actors, such as the torture, rape, and killing of political prisoners, and the beatings and killings of dissidents and other civilians. Capital punishment in Iran remains a matter of international concern.
Nazanin (Mahabad) Fatehi is an Iranian woman who was sentenced to death for stabbing a man who allegedly tried to rape her and her 15-year-old niece, events occurring when she herself was a 17-year-old. After more than two years in jail, Fatehi was cleared of intentional murder, ordered to pay diyeh, and released on bail. As of 2012, Fatehi's whereabouts were reported to be unknown to concerned supporters outside of Iran.
Capital punishment is a legal punishment in Iran.
Nazanin and also spelt Nazenin or Nazneen, is a Persian female given name in Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Turkey. It means "sweetheart", "lovely", "darling", or "delightful". Notable people with the name include:
Human rights in the Middle East have been shaped by the legal and political development of international human rights law after the Second World War, and their application to the Middle East. The 2004 United Nations Arab Human Development Report (AHDR) claimed that although Arab-Islamic tradition does hold unique importance for ideas of human welfare, History has proven that "they were not sufficiently prevalent in society to foster a culture based on a political contract, and allow for the legitimacy of differences of opinion, dialogue and transfer of power." Issues of the validity of democracy in the region and human rights are at the very centre of the challenges facing Middle Eastern society today.
Delara Darabi was an Iranian Gilaki woman who was sentenced to death after having been convicted of murdering her father's female cousin in 2003. Although Delara initially claimed that she had committed the crime, she subsequently recanted and explained that her older boyfriend, Amir Hossein, had persuaded her to lie about the incident to protect him. According to Delara and other sources familiar with the case, Amir Hossein was the person who had committed the murder in an attempt to steal from a wealthy member of the Darabi family. She was hanged in Rasht Prison on 1 May 2009.
Reza Alinejad is an Iranian man who, at the age of 17, was accused of killing another man in self defence and sentenced to death by hanging.
The United States has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC); however, it remains the only United Nations member state to have not ratified it after Somalia ratified it in 2015.
The First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is an international treaty establishing an individual complaint mechanism for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 16 December 1966, and entered into force on 23 March 1976. As of January 2023, it had 117 state parties and 35 signatories. Two of the ratifying states have denounced the protocol.
Capital punishment is legal in Tonga, but has not been imposed since 1982. The country's lack of executions puts it into the category of a state abolitionist in practice, where it retains the death penalty in law but has had a formal or informal moratorium for at least ten years. Tonga's low rate of murder convictions forms part of the reason for the lack of executions, as well as its courts’ apparent unwillingness to impose the penalty unless it appears absolutely necessary to do so.
Mosleh Zamani was a 23-year-old Iranian Kurd who was executed on December 17, 2009 for having an "illicit relationship with his girlfriend" when he was 17 years old.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Yemen. Per capita, Yemen has one of the highest execution rates in the world. Capital punishment is typically carried out by shooting, and executions occasionally take place in public. In addition to being the only individual in the country with the authority to grant clemency, the President of Yemen must ratify all executions handed down by any court before they are carried out. Since 2014, large parts of the north and north-west of the country are under the control of the extremist Houthi rebel group, who have presided over an expansion in the use of the death penalty.
Slavery in international law is governed by a number of treaties, conventions and declarations. Foremost among these is the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) that states in Article 4: “no one should be held in slavery or servitude, slavery in all of its forms should be eliminated.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991 and ratified it in 1994. Upon ratification, Iran made the following reservation: "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."
On 12 March 2022, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia carried out the mass execution of 81 men, including 7 Yemenis, 1 Syrian and 37 Saudi nationals on terrorism related charges and for holding deviant beliefs. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights understood that 41 were minority Shia Muslims who had participated in anti-government demonstrations calling for greater political participation in 2011–2012. Rights groups accused the government of adopting restrictive regulations against religious expression and political beliefs, as well as criticising its use of the death sentence, even for children arrested, and citing the execution as a violation of human rights.
