Stop the execution of the children under the age of 18 in Iran

To:  The Honorable Kofi Annan Secretary-General of U.N.

The Honorable Kofi Annan
Secretary-General
United Nations
UN Plaza
New York, NY 10017

November 08, 2004


Your Excellency Kofi Annan!

On the eve of the 15th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Children, ratified by General Assembly resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989, we would like to remind you of the plight of children and youth in Iran. It is a bitter fact that Iranian children remain deprived of many basic individual and social rights guaranteed under this Convention.

Paragraph (a) of Article 37, states that parties shall ensure that: “No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age”.

Although the Islamic Republic of Iran has been a signatory to this convention for ten years, it has repeatedly violated it in spirit and in practice by systematically refusing to implement its clauses. While a minimum age of eighteen is mandatory under the Iranian Civil/Business Law for a person to enter a business transaction, under the Criminal Law, by invoking Islamic Canon Law (The Shari’a) it is sufficient for a child to reach the age of adolescence and/or puberty, nine years, in the case of a girl and fifteen years in the case of a boy, to become punishable for a criminal offense.

Consequently, children who suffer from inadequate protection within their immediate family and who are victims of social circumstances in the first place are treated as if they were mature adults answerable to Criminal Law. These minors are liable to be charged for committing offenses, indicted, imprisoned and even sentenced to death - (the sentence to be carried out as soon as they reach their eighteenth birthday) in violation of International norms and conventions including the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In view of this unacceptable and deplorable situation, a number of human right activists, writers, lawyers, and NGOs who focus on or support the plight of children have recently joined forces in writing an open letter to The Supreme Council of Justice of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Shoray-e a’li-ye ghazaie) urging that the Council take proper steps to abolish the criminal punishment of minors in Iran. The Council has declared itself as lacking the authority to deal with this matter and has referred the appeal to the seventh Legislative Assembly of the IRI (Majlis-e shoray-e eslami) declaring that it is within the prerogative of the Majlis to consider this motion.

Your Excellency!

As members of The Executive Committee of the Iranian Children's Right Society and on behalf of individuals who has signed this open letter in support of our petition to you, and in view of the critical responsibility bestowed upon Your Excellency by the international community and encouraged by your good office and outstanding record in safeguarding the implementation of UN conventions and resolutions we respectfully demand that:

Through your good office the Legislative Assembly (Majlis-e shoray-e eslami) and the Supreme Council of Justice of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Shoray-e a’li-ye ghazaie) are urged to revise those clauses of Criminal Law practiced in Iran that are in gross violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and stipulate that the Islamic Republic of Iran is required under UN Charter to remove all clauses of its practiced criminal law that contradict its obligation as a signatory to the Convention.

Your Excellency!

As indicated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, "the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth." Under the UN Charter on The Rights of The Child, every child has the right to life, and rehabilitation, the Children of Iran are putting their fate in your capable hands. Given that for many of these children there would simply be no future unless you take appropriate measures to ensure their safety and impose full implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, we plead with you to persist in demanding that the Islamic Republic of Iran adhere absolutely to the rules of the Convention on the rights of the Children which it agreed to implement a decade ago.

Your Excellency!

Please do not fail the Iranian children.


Iranian Children’s Right Society
Board of Directors

Mahdokht Sanati
Jila Kashef
Azar Zohrabi
Farah Masoumi
Mohammad Haghani
Bijan Pirzadeh
Reza Goharzad

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Stop the execution of the children under the age of 18 in Iran Petition to The Honorable Kofi Annan Secretary-General of U.N. was created by ICRS Board of Directors and written by Reza Goharzad (info@iranianchildren.org).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.

Send this to a friend