div dir="ltr" align="left"The Hanged

By Shadi Sadr
(Translated by Roshana)
(Edited by Jim Giragosian)
News reports indicate that on Sunday, August 15, 2004,
a girl named Atefeh Rajabi was executed in the town of
Neka, located in the province of Mazandaran, for
"engaging in acts incompatible with chastity." This
news not only resulted in public outrage but also was
widely disseminated in the international media, and
one can expect that it will be construed as evidence
of Iran's hostility toward human rights.

In this article we will first examine and evaluate the
sentence. We will then review Iran's international
commitments regarding the use of the death penalty and
the international repercussions of carrying out such a
sentence.

At the time of this writing, there is no evidence to
document that the hanged girl was 16 years old. In
this article, therefore, we will not discuss the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
or the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child -- both of which were signed by Iran -- which
prohibit the execution of people under the age of 18.
Nor will we discuss the fact that the Judiciary Chief
issued a circular prohibiting the execution of people
under the age of 18 less than one year ago. We will
likewise not consider all the other unproven
allegations associated with the case. Because of the
extremely sensitive nature of this death sentence and
the manner in which it was carried out, however, it
would seem preferable to have an independent judicial
organization conduct a complete and thorough
investigation to determine the truth or falsity of the
allegations surrounding the case, e.g., that the
hanged girl was psychologically unbalanced and that
she had no legal representation in any of the judicial
proceedings. In this article, we will criticize the
court's decision and the execution solely on the basis
of the court record and Judge Haji Reza's comments.

The last part of the court's sentence -- which was
upheld a short time later by the Supreme Court of Iran
and then carried out -- states that "Atefeh, who is 22
years old and single, has a record of several criminal
offenses, and based on the confession of the defendant
that it is the fourth time she was arrested for
adultery, and based on the content of the record and
the fourth confession, her crime is indubitable, and
she is sentenced to death, and in order to restore
public order and to preserve the rights of society,
she will be hanged publicly in an appropriate location
in Neka" (E'temad Daily, August 20, 2004).

Although this part of the court's decision does not
specify the exact nature of her offense, a magazine
that had been following the case reported that the
hanged girl's crime was lewd conduct and that the
defendant confessed explicitly that she had a "house
of ill repute" and had brought men there. In
addition, the judge in this case pointed out that
"early this year, anonymous reports from residents of
a neighborhood in Neka were submitted to the court,
and these reports alleged that Miss Atefeh was
involved in acts incompatible with chastity" (E'temad
Daily, August 20, 2004).

As mentioned in the court's decision, the hanged girl
was single, and according to the Islamic Penal Code, a
single person's punishment for adultery is one hundred
lashes (Article 88). Of course, Article 90 of the
Code says, "When a man or a woman commits adultery
several times and after each time he or she has been
given the lashes, he or she will be killed the fourth
time." It seems that the only basis the judge would
have for sentencing a single woman to death would be
this article, since he states in his decision that the
defendant had a record of several criminal
convictions, making her a repeat offender. But there
are some seemingly minor points that call into doubt
the soundness and accuracy of this decision.

First of all, even if the hanged girl had been lashed
several times for lewd conduct, her act could not be
construed (as the judge concluded in his decision) as
adultery. Second, the judge should have cited the
case and the charges he used as the basis for his
assertion that it was for adultery and not for
anything else that the hanged girl had been given
"Haddi" lashes rather than "Ta'ziri" lashes, since he
sentenced her to death citing the "fourth offense" as
well as the defendant's confession. Using terms like
"several" lessens the precision and logic of the
decision. There is also the matter of using the term
"adultery," since earlier sentences indicated that the
hanged girl was single, and this further confuses the
issue (i.e., if she was single, then how could she
commit "adultery"?), and if she had committed
"adultery," then according to Iran's laws she should
have been sentenced to death by stoning rather than
hanging.

Different types of capital punishment, including death
by hanging, are common under Iran's penal law. These
punishments are partially derived from Islam's "Fegh"
[religious jurisprudence]. "Hodood" punishments,
which include lashes, are among them. The other type
is "Ta'ziri" execution, the most well-known example of
which is the execution of drug smugglers. Capital
punishment is a part of Iranian law, and pardons are
seldom granted. In the first month of this year the
Judiciary Chief issued a circular on homicide, "loin"
penalties, and execution, specifying the details on
how executions are to be carried out.

In the past week, in addition to the execution of the
young woman in Neka described above, four men were
publicly hanged in two different cities in Iran.
According to the newspaper Jomhori Islami, three of
these men were executed in a square in Kerman for drug
smuggling, and the fourth was executed in Toti Square
in Salmas for kidnapping. It is obvious that aside
from the executions that are carried out in public and
receive wide attention, most take place in prisons
where they are hidden from public scrutiny.

In addition to laws, regulations, and directives,
there are other rules with which Iran's government is
bound to comply. One human rights convention to which
Iran is a signatory is the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights. Article 6 of the covenant
discusses capital punishment. Although the article
does not prohibit the death penalty, it limits it to
"the most serious crimes." Section 2 of the article
states, "In countries which have not abolished the
death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only
for the most serious crimes." Although one could
argue that certain illicit sexual acts are "serious
sins," it is obvious that they cannot be regarded as
"crimes." This article could seemingly provide
international human rights observers with sufficient
justification to object to the frequent executions
that are carried out in public.

The file on Atefeh -- a 16 or 22 year-old girl -- and
the files of all the other individuals whose
executions roused public opinion have been relegated
to the silent judiciary archives, but the challenge
of human rights for Iran's government -- for all
groups, whether reformist, technocrat, or conservative
-- remains a serious one, and it will continue to be
one of the major topics of diplomatic discussion
between a developing Iran and the world's developed
countries. And in this challenge capital punishment
will be of particular interest, especially when people
are executed for offenses like adultery. Human rights
activists consider this act an individual matter and
maintain that there should be no punishment for such
offenses since (except in rare cases) they cannot be
construed as threatening the state, the population, or
public order. Indeed, international human rights
organizations put pressure on Iran for executing
people for acts that are considered crimes only in
Iran and a few other countries rather than for acts
that are considered crimes in most countries.

Iran's present tactic is to counter the objections and
pressure of international organizations and Western
countries by maintaining that it is acting within
judicious bounds ("steering a middle course") when it
is charged with human rights violations. But it
appears that there are two other courses of action
open to Iran. The first is to acknowledge all the
international human rights conventions it has signed
and settle the issue one way or the other with
international communities and national human rights
activists. The second is to make a concerted effort
to reform the laws and legal system in order to
fulfill its human rights commitments. But we all know
that "steering the middle course" -- which means
refusing to fulfill international commitments without
plainly stating that we do not accept international
standards of human rights or that we do not
acknowledge international human rights conventions in
spite of all the consequences for our national
interest -- is the only policy that Iranian
politicians have so far been willing to follow.
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sourcehttp://www.womeniniran.org/archives/FMP/001010.php