Last week a group of Iranian Attorneys’ held a conference in Tehran discussing the penal laws of Iran’s Islamic Regime.

Dr. Najafi Tavana one of the speakers at the conference said that in 1925 Iran’s laws were drafted from penal laws of France, Belgium, Italy and Austria. In spite of religion the age of 18 was gradually approved as the legal age. Thereafter based on these progressive laws, children courts were officially recognized in 1959. However after the Islamic revolution these laws were unfortunately abandoned. The current laws establish the penal age at puberty – 9 to 15 years of age. “How could the same child who is not given the legal authority to hold a property, is treated like an adult if s/he commits a crime?….How could a child who did not have a legal responsibility , one day reaches (at physical puberty) maturity and starting the next day becomes responsible?” he asked.

 ”This is not scientifically acceptable, because the ability to control behavior during puberty is unstable and scientifically this instability continues until the child obtains more control and achieves a balance of his/her spiritual, physical and sexual needs.” he added.

Najafi said: ” Although our judiciary based on this inaccurate method bases puberty as the responsible age , however they avoid executing a 15 year old boy or a 10 year old girl.” (Iran usually imprisons children until the age of 18 before executing them.)

“Our penal laws are illogical and even in contradiction with religious resources and in contrast with scientific fundamentals and international conventions” He concluded.

Source: Radio Zamaneh (Persian: scenews.blog.com/1957230/ )