[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 5



IRAN:

Iran considers ending death penalty for drug offenses


Mohammad Javad Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Human Rights Council, said 
that Iran is looking to end the death penalty for drug related cases, which he 
said account for 80% of the country's executions. His comments followed 
statements by the head of Iran's judiciary, who earlier said that the country's 
drug laws were not effective and need to be reformed.

Iranian judicial officials have once again stated publicly that the country's 
criminal prosecution and punishment of drug-related crime need to be reformed.

In a Dec. 4 English-language interview with France 24's Sanam Shantyaei, Javad 
Larijani said, "No one is happy to see the number of executions is high. And 
it's a sad story that we have this much drug related crime. ... According to 
the existing law, ... they are receiving capital punishment."

Javad Larijani continued, 'We are crusading to change this law. If we are 
successful, if the law passes the parliament, almost 80% of the executions will 
go away. This is big news for us, regardless of the Western criticism." His 
statements were picked up and translated by Iran's Persian-language Fars News 
Agency.

While not speaking as explicitly as Javad Larijani, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, 
Javad Larijani's brother and the head of Iran's judiciary, addressed the need 
to change the country's drug laws. During a Dec. 2 meeting of judiciary 
officials, he said, "On the issue of drugs and trafficking, it feels necessary 
that we need a change in the legislation because the ultimate goal of the law 
should be implementing justice, while in reality, this goal is often not 
realized."

This is not the 1st time that Iran's judiciary has proposed changing the 
punishment for drug-related crimes, or at least modifying how the punishment is 
implemented.

In May 2014, current deputy head of Iran's judiciary Gholam-Ali Mohseni-Ejei, 
while speaking as the country's top prosecutor, said at a meeting of the High 
Council for Human Rights in Iran, "Unfortunately, the high number of executions 
in this country is related to drugs smuggling and the heavy penalties for this 
infraction. If, within the existing laws, we can review it in such a way that 
we help the intelligence officials to punish the leaders of these smuggling 
networks, and for the rest, we reconsider [their punishment], the goals of the 
system can be better realized."

According to conservative Etelaat newspaper, Sadegh Larijani did not advocate 
softness on drug smuggling. He said that drug smugglers need to be "dealt with 
seriously" but conceded, "Unfortunately, today, with respect to drugs and 
drug-related laws, we see that these laws have no impact."

According to Amnesty International, with 369 in 2013, Iran was 2nd only to 
China in state executions. Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United States were in 
3rd, 4th, and 5th place, respectively. Iran has performed a record number of 
executions in 2014. According to the Iran Documentation Human Rights Center, 
there have been 647, though the center claims that Iran has acknowledged only 
229 of them.

(source: al-monitor.com)