Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajuh faces imminent execution for killing her husband, Bahman. He had attempted to rape Fatemehвs daughter from a previous marriage. Bahman, a drug addict, had openly shown interest in his stepdaughter who was 15 years old at the time. He claimed to have lost the girl in a gambling match. When Fatemeh discovered Bahman had tried to rape her daughter, she killed him.

Fatemehвs death sentence is scheduled to be carried out this Wednesday (October 13, 2004), and has been approved by the Supreme Court, required for all death sentences in Iran. Meanwhile, the Iranian judge and officers who raped 16 year old Atefe Rajabi, and who rushed her execution to destroy evidence, have been set free.

The Iranian government and judicial system once again has demonstrated its hypocrisy and lack of justice. The casual and carefree manner in which executions are carried out in Iran is in direct violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a state party.

We, the undersigned, hereby express our strong objection to the use of the death penalty in Iran, the trivial manner in which the government decides to take away someoneвs life, and the lack of accountability and justice endemic within the Iranian judicial system.