August 3rd 2007

To your Excellency General Ali ´Abdullah Saleh,
 
On behalf of the Stop Child Executions campaign (www.stopchildexecutions.com ), I would like to voice my concern for Yemen citizen Hafez Ibrahim who is in imminent risk of execution despite Yemen being state party to the ICCPR and CRC.
 
Article 6.5 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) declares:
“Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age”.
 
Article 37(a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides that:
“Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age”.
 
Hafez Ibrahim was sentenced to death in 2005 for a murder he allegedly committed when he was 16. His death sentence was ratified by the President and was reportedly scheduled to be carried out on 6 April 2005.
 
However the former Minister of Human Rights had told Amnesty International that after this UA was issued on 5 April 2005, she appealed personally to you to stay the execution. She also said that Hafez Ibrahim’s age was disputed. She undertook to seek commutation of the death sentence, by obtaining a pardon from the family of the murder victim. On 7 April 2005 you stayed Hafez Ibrahim’s execution to allow time for an agreement to be reached in the case.
 
Relatives of the victim have reportedly refused to pardon Hafez Ibrahim, and in July 2007 the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence against Hafez.
 
 As a concerned global citizena and human rights activist, I urge you to prevent the execution of Hafez Ibrahim and prevent any further application of such penalties against child offenders.
 
Sincerely,
 
 
Nazanin Afshin-Jam
Co-founder of Stop Child Executions Campaign
www.stopchildexecutions.com
www.nazanin.ca

COPIES TO