Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions A/HRC/14/24/Add.1 para 410 Full recommendation: I wish to thank your Excellency for your letter dated 15 July 2009 in response to my letter of 23 August 2007, in respect to another case in which the accused juvenile offender had been sentenced to qisas. Your letter indicates that through efforts of the Judiciary, the case had entered the reconciliation case and that as a result of the victim’s guardians giving their consent the execution had been stopped and the accused released. While I welcome this outcome, I remain concerned that such efforts to decrease the carrying out of death sentences against offenders who were juveniles is an utterly inadequate approach to com plying with your Excellency’s Government’s obligations under international law. These can only be fulfilled by immediately stopping all executions for crimes committed by persons who were not aged 18 at the time of the offence. Laws permitting the death sentence to be imposed on juvenile offenders are inherently inconsistent with the international legal obligations assumed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and should be promptly repealed. Assessment using Impact Iran human rights indicators1 The Islamic Penal Code (2013)2 establishes the age of criminal responsibility at 9 lunar years for girls and 15 lunar years for boys.3 However, the age of responsibility for ta’zir crimes (crimes for which fixed penalties are not provided in Islamic law giving the judge discretion as to the sentence imposed) is 18 years for all children. For these crimes, convicted children are sentenced to correctional measures. In contrast, criminal responsibility for crimes punishable by hudud (punishments fixed by God) or qisas (punishment or retribution in kind), which carry mandatory punishments such as death, is maintained at the age of “maturity” that is 9 lunar years for girls and 15 lunar years for boys. Reportedly, four convicted child offenders were executed in 2019 in the Islamic Republic of Iran.4 In qisas cases, the pardon or commutation of the sentence is based solely on the request of the victim or the victim’s guardian.5 The accused are thus unable to request their own pardons or commutation, but there are a number institutions which can intervene to mediate cases of 1 CCPR.6.5.S.1; CRC.37.1.S.2 CCPR.6.5.P.1 CCPR.6.5.O.1; CCPR.6.5.O.2 2 Article 146 and 147, Islamic Penal Code (2013), English translation, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, https://iranhrdc.org/english-translation-of-books-i-ii-of-the-new-islamic-penal-code/ 3 Article 1210, note 1 4 ECPM, Iran Human Rights, https://www.ecpm.org/wp-content/uploads/Rapport-iran-2020-gb-070420-WEB.pdf 5 Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, January 2019, https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F40%2F67&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop 1

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