children sentenced with qisas, notably in order to commute qisas into diya sentences (blood
money). These institutions include a reconciliation commission, a working group tasked to
support mediation with the victim’s next of kin, conflict resolution council branches and the
Women and Children and Protection Office of the Judiciary. 6 There is no readily available
information that would indicate the number of cases concerning children that have been received,
reviewed and adjudicated by these institutions. However, the Government of the Islamic of Iran
noted that the State was not intervening in cases of qisas, which “is only possible on the basis of
the request of the owners of the blood”.7 Ultimately, if the victim’s next of kin does not grant
pardon in exchange for diya, the sentence must be executed, with no option for the accused,
including children, to seek pardon or commutation from the State.
Additionally, Article 91 of the 2013 Islamic Penal Code allows judges to pronounce alternative
sentences in circumstances where the juveniles “do not realize the nature of the crime committed
or its prohibition, or if there is uncertainty about their full mental development, according to their
age”.8 The Article further adds that “the court may ask the opinion of forensic medicine or resort
to any other method that it sees appropriate in order to establish the full mental development”.9
In 2017, a number of special procedure mandate holders described ongoing executions of child
offenders in the Islamic Republic of Iran as “conclusive proof of the failure of the 2013
amendments to stop the execution of individuals sentenced to death as children”.10 In 2019, the
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran found that the
aforementioned assessment of the mental development of the accused at the time of the offence
was “arbitrary and inconsistent, and at the sole discretion of the judge, who can choose whether
to seek medical advice or not”.11 In recent years, reports indicated that courts have been selective
in applying Article 91 and its note.12 There were cases where, despite forensic reports confirming
that the defendant was not “fully mature” at the time of the crime, the judge decided that the
accused individual(s) were mature and the language of Article 91 did not apply to them, as they
had previously been charged for criminal activities (e.g., robbery).
In general, the current Iranian legal framework permits the issuance of death penalty sentences
for those under the age of 18, and the reforms introduced by the Islamic Penal Code have not
6
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
7
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, January 2019,
https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/40/67
8
Islamic Penal Code (2013), English translation, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, https://iranhrdc.org/englishtranslation-of-books-i-ii-of-the-new-islamic-penal-code/
9
See Islamic Penal Code (2013), English translation, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, https://iranhrdc.org/englishtranslation-of-books-i-ii-of-the-new-islamic-penal-code/.
10
See OHCHR News, www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21547&LangID=E
11
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
12
Amnesty International, https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/irans-hypocrisy-exposed-as-scores-of-juvenile-offenderscondemned-to-gallows/
2