‘Stone Age’ in Iran
The men are buried to their waist and
the women to their neck. Then the officials start to throw
stones at them. But the thrown stones should not be too big
to cause the death of the convict with one or two throwing,
nor should they be too small not to injure them. Those who
succeed in getting out from where they were buried are
released.
These phrases show the subtlety of the
Rajm, the death penalty executed by lapidating. Every year,
the organizations of human rights and various international
institutions do blame this penalty and demand its abolition.
The Iranian administration is, however, far from taking a
concrete step in this issue. It was announced that, in the
last January the death penalty of three convicts had been
conducted by the way of rajm and one of these male convicts
succeeded in fleeing.
According to the Islamic rules, before
deciding in rajm, it is required that the convict should
confess his/her crime four times before the lawyer and
witness. It is, however, claimed that this rule is not
applied before the executions.
According to the numbers issued by the
International Amnesty Organization, Iran follows China as
the country where the number of executions is the highest.
It is indicated that since the beginning of 2009, the number
of executions is 94, while this number was at least 297 in
2008. The Iranian Administration signed the Universal Human
Rights Declaration as well as the Convention on Child
Rights. The Article 37 of the Convention stipulates the
banning of death penalty for those who are under 18. In
spite of this fact, in the recent years, the children and
young people constitute the majority of those who are
executed and awaiting for the execution.
It is supposed that the most favorite
profession is executioner in Iran where there are still 9
persons awaiting for rajm and hundreds of others awaiting
for ordinary execution.
