We regret to announce that without any prior notification of his parents or lawyer, Behnam Zare was executed this morning in prison yard of Shiraz prison in Iran. Stop Child Executions strongly condemns execution of Behnam Zare and calls on Islamic regime in Iran to once and for all join the international community and immediately halt all child executions.

Not only Iran is in direct violation of the international conventions (ICCPR and CRC) which prohibit execution of those guilty of crimes before the age of 18, but by not notifying the parents and attorneys, Iran also violates its own laws which requires 48 notice of intent to execute.

Behnam Zare’ was convicted of a murder which reportedly took place on 21 April 2005, when he was 15 years old. He was found to have swung a knife during an argument with a man named Mehrdad, wounding him in the neck. Mehrdad later died in hospital. Behnam Zare`was detained on 13 November 2005; Branch 5 of Fars Criminal Court sentenced him to qesas (retribution) for premeditated murder. Under Article 206 (b) of Iran’s Criminal Code, murder is classed as premeditated “in cases where the murderer intentionally makes an action which is inherently lethal, even if [the murderer] does not intend to kill the person.” The case went to appeal before Branch 33 of the Supreme Court where the sentence was upheld, and it was then passed to the Office for Implementation of Sentences after approval by Iran’s head of Judiciary, Ayatollah Shahrudi.

To read more about Behnam’s case visit:

http://scenews.blog.com/Behnam%20Zare/

Iran has executed at least 7 juveniles in 2008:

Javad Shojaee – 16 (executed on February 26, 2008)    
Mohammad Hassanzadeh (executed on June 10, 2008)   
Hassan Mozafari (executed on July 22, 2008)   
Rahman Shahidi (executed on July 22, 2008)   
Kurdish Boy- 15 (executed July 31, 2008)   
Seyed Reza Hejazi -15 (executed on August 19, 2008)   
Behnam Zare – 15 (executed on August 16, 2008)