In support of the campaign to stop child executions in Iran, European parliament members signed the resolution that was presented to them on February 27, 2007 by Nazanin Afshin Jam and Mina Ahadi. Following is the text of the resolution and the signatures:

Call for abolition of Executions of Juveniles in Iran 2007

Background

As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Iran has undertaken not to execute anyone for an offence committed when they were under the age of 18. Nevertheless, Amnesty International has recorded 21 executions of child offenders in Iran since 1990. In 2006, Iran and Pakistan were the only countries in the world to continue to execute child offenders

 The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which monitors states’ compliance with the CRC, in January 2005 urged Iran immediately to stay all executions of people convicted of crimes committed when they were under 18, and to abolish the use of the death penalty in such cases.

The European Parliament:
-       having regard to its previous resolutions on Iran, notably concerning Human Rights,

-       having regard to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Iran is a party,

1)      Calls on the Iranian authorities to immediately halt all executions of juvenile offenders and to prevent any further application of the death penalty, especially against minors;

2)      Strongly condemns the death sentences passed against and execution of juvenile offenders and minors, and calls upon the Iranian authorities to respect internationally recognized legal safeguards with regard to minors such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides that capital punishment shall not be imposed for offences committed by persons below 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the offence.

3)      Strongly condemns the death sentences of the following 23 child offenders as reported by Amnesty International in January 2007:

 1- Beniamin Rasouli, 17
 2- Hossein Toranj, 17
 3- Hossein Haghi, 17
 4- Morteza Feizi, 16
 5- Sa’eed Jazee, 17
 6- Ali Mahin Torabi, 16
 7- Milad Bakhtiari, 16
 8- Farshad Sa’eedi, 17
 9- Mostafa, 16
 10- Mahmoud, 17
 11- Saber
 12- Hamid, 17
 13- Sajjad, 17
 14- Farzad, 15
 15- Hossein Gharabaghloo, 16
 16- Asghar, 16
 17- Iman, 17
 18- Ne’mat, 15
 19- Mohammad Mousavi,
 20- Delara Darabi, 17
 21- Hamzeh S, 17
 22- Shahram Pourmansouri, 17
 23- Hedayat Niroumand, 15

Signatures from Members of European Parliament:

Germany:             Uca, Felenka

Nazanin Afshin-Jam
Human Rights Activist

Mina Ahadi
Head of The International Committee Against Execution