May 31, 2016
Saving young lives from
execution in Iran
To mark 1 June – International
Children’s Day – Raha Bahreini from our Iran team describes how Amnesty
has managed to raise awareness about the death penalty and save juvenile
offenders from the gallows in Iran.
It starts with a panicked phone call.
Our contact tells us that a juvenile offender (a person aged below 18 at the time of their crime) has just been transferred to solitary confinement – the final step before execution.
This is often our first glimpse of this young person and the desperate situation they are in. Why? Because the families of those on death row often fear reprisals if they publicize the plight of their loved ones. They sometimes believe that international lobbying and public campaigning will only complicate the situation and hasten the execution. At times, the authorities themselves give families false assurances, claiming that if the family does not publicize the case, their loved ones might be spared.
The moment we are prompted to intervene is often the moment when the authorities’ promises are exposed as hollow and the young person is just days or hours away from execution.
Click here to read the entire blog article.
Note: To mark 1 June, the International Children’s Day, Amnesty International's Iran team has issued a blog describing how Amnesty International activists have collectively managed to raise global awareness about the plight of juvenile offenders in Iran and save the lives of young people when they were just days or hours away from execution.
The blog chronicles how the team has
worked, alongside media and campaigning colleagues, to generate a global
outcry about juvenile offenders who were otherwise languishing in isolation
on death row. It celebrates the fantastic outcomes that have been achieved,
through public campaigning, for young people including Salar Shadizadi,
Alireza Tajiki and Saman Naseem. And it looks on the long struggle ahead
to bring on a day when children will never have to face the gallows in
Iran again.
