Iran Executions Increase Since Election



An Iranian justice official has confirmed the execution of 24 
convicted drug traffickers at the end of July, believed to be one of 
the largest mass-executions carried out by the Islamic Republic since 
the revolution brought the Ayatollahs to power 30 years ago.

The message of swift, decisive "justice" delivered by Iran's leaders 
is clear, and comes at a time when those leaders, both political and 
religious, are wrestling to overcome an image of internal dispute and 
reassert their authority following post-election violence that left 
at least 30 people dead and hundreds jailed.

Tehran's deputy prosecutor, Mahmoud Salarkia, said the 24 were hanged 
at the notorious Karaj prison on July 30th. "Their execution was 
approved by the supreme court," said Salarkia, without naming the 
prisoners.

Iran has killed at least 219 prisoners already this year, according 
to a tally from the French news agency AFP, and the pace of the 
executions seems to have increased amid the postelection turmoil.

President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad was sworn in on Wednesday for a second 
term after his purported land-slide reelection on June 12.

Since then, Iranian police and Basij paramilitary members have 
cracked down hard on thousands of opposition supporters who took to 
the streets with their claim the vote was rigged on a dramatic scale 
by Ahmadinejad and his supporters.

Also since then, and officially unrelated, Iran has executed at least 
44 drug convicts, 19 Baluch minorities convicted of supporting a 
terrorist group, and possibly two young men sentenced for murders 
they allegedly committed before the age of 18.

Thus far, international outrage over the supposedly coincidental 
uptick in executions amid the postelection turmoil has been muted, at 
best.

The European Union condemned the July 30 executions and said in a 
statement that the 27-member bloc was "concerned about the continued 
large-scale use of the death penalty in Iran, including the repeated 
incidence of collective executions during the past month."

"The Presidency continues to call on the Iranian authorities to 
abolish the death penalty completely and, in the meantime, to 
establish a moratorium on executions," it added.

The United States government has made no official remarks on the 
sanctioned killings.

Iran came second only to China in the number of prisoners executed 
during 2008, with a reported total of 246. China is believed to have 
killed as many as 5,000 of its convicts, but that number is 
unconfirmed. In the United States, by comparison, 37 people were 
executed in state death chambers, according to the Death Penalty 
Information Center.

Iran did execute 29 people convicted of drug trafficking and other 
various crimes in July of 2008, but this summer's killings come after 
an apparent push within the Islamic Republic's judiciary to reduce 
the application of the death penalty.

According to a report by CNN, a spokesman for the judiciary — which 
is handpicked and approved by the clerical leadership — announced a 
move to curtail "unnecessary executions" in May this year, the month 
before the presidential elections.

"Certain measures have been sent to parliament for approval. In 
particular, regarding cases involving unnecessary executions. Those 
laws are in the process of being changed... We hope to see a 
reduction of such sentences," Iranian media quoted a judiciary 
spokesman as saying, according to the CNN story. The official cited 
"a huge development in our laws in recent years."

Progress on those reforms, it would seem, has been postponed. A 
worrying delay as three ill-advised American backpackers sit in an 
Iranian jail after apparently crossing the border illegally.

Not to mention the 500 or so Iranian dissidents, academics and 
journalists still awaiting their fate in prisons across the country.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/07/world/worldwatch/
entry5222976.shtml