Yesterday , 17 year old Mehyar Haghgoo was sentenced to death by a court in the city of Rasht, Iran. Mehyar’s case was initially reported by Stop Child Executions Campaign in July of 2007 after being notified by his attorney Mohammad Mostafaei.  

Mehyar is accused of killing his abusive and alcoholic father. According to the report at the time of alleged murder , Mehyar’s father was beating up his mother. Mehyar seem to have suffered from temporary insanity at the time.  Mehyar’s mother is jointly accused of murder of her husband. Mehyar is from the northern city of Rasht which is the same city as where Delara Darabi, Soghra and few other children are awaiting execution.

International law strictly prohibits the use of the death penalty against people convicted of crimes committed when they were under 18. As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the CRC, Iran has undertaken not to execute child offenders. since 1990, the ruling Islamic regime in Iran has executed at least 30 juveniles, including more than 6 in 2007. 86 youth are now recorded by SCE to be on death row in Iran for alleged crimes before the age of 18. This number may be even higher as according to the reports, at least a further 15 Afghan juvenile offenders may be under sentence of death. According to the statistics provided by an Iranian police official about 170 children (under 18 at time of alleged crime) can be facing execution in Iran. There has been a surge in processing the children’s file for execution. In the past 3 months, SCE has reported 12 imminent executions for Ali Mahin-Torabi, Mohammad Latif, Delara Darabi, Hossein Haghi, Behnood,  Ali, Saeed Jazee,  Amir Amorollahi, Rahim Ahmadi, Mohammad Haddadi and Mehyar Haghgoo.  Earlier this month 42 European countries condemned Iran for the surge in child executions. Iran has broken the world records in 2007 with at least 297 recorded executions comparing to 177 in 2006.

As of February 2008 Stop Child Executions Campaign has recorded 91 children facing executions worldwide: 86 in Iran, 2 in Saudi Arabia, 2 in Sudan and 1 in Yemen. In 2007 at least 7 were reported to have been executed : 6 in Iran and 1 in Saudi Arabia. Three are known to have been saved from execution: 2 in Iran and 1 in Yemen.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: