Stop Child Executions Campaign was notified that this morning another Iranian youth : Javad Shojaei was executed in a prison yard in the central city of Isfahan, Iran. Javad Shojaei was sentenced to death by hanging for an alleged murder in the year 2000 when he was only 16 years old. Javad’s execution was later approved by Iran’s superior court. All child executions are performed with prior approval of Ayatollah Shahrudi , the head of Iran’s judiciary.
Unfortunately SCE Campaign had no prior knowledge of Javad’s case and his name was not among our recorded list of the 96 children facing execution in Iran. SCE Campaign has continuously stated that the number of juveniles facing execution in Iran substantially exceeds those we have been able to record so far. In violation of it’s own laws and international laws, the Islamic regime in Iran does not disclose nor publish the names of those facing execution. It is feared that many others have also been executed without the knowledge of outside world. According to a high official of Iran’s police, there are at least 170 children facing execution in Iran.
Stop Child Executions Campaign strongly condemns the execution of Javad Shojaei which is in direct violation of international conventions of the rights of the child and calls on the Iran’s regime to immediately halt all child executions and approve the parliamentary bill regarding juvenile rights which has been blocked by the fundamentalists during the past 4 years .
In a recent article published in Iran’s Etemaad Meli newspaper, Mohammad Mostafaei who represents many Iranian children facing execution, stated that child execution is also in direct violations of Iran’s Sharia law, because the reference to the ages of adulthood at 15 for boys and 9 for girls within Iran’s legal codes was NOT (nor was intended to) extend to criminal cases.