A Representative: Five Thousand Drug Traffickers Awaiting Execution in Iran

A member of parliament has reported that there are five thousand drug traffickers in Iran 'awaiting execution,' many of whom do not have a proportional punishment for their crimes. According to a report on Wednesday, April 23, by the Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency, Ali Bakhtiar, a member of the Judicial and Legal Commission of the parliament, made these statements regarding the proposed amendment to the drug trafficking law. He stated that these five thousand individuals 'generally include those who managed drug trafficking or engaged in armed transport, but many others are on death row who, although they committed crimes, should not be sentenced to death, as there is no proportionality between their crime and punishment.' This statistic comes as Amnesty International reported a 42% decrease in the number of executions in Iran in 2016 compared to the previous year. The organization stated that a total of 567 executions were recorded in Iran in 2016, down from 977 in 2015, marking a 42% decrease in executions in the Islamic Republic. Judicial officials in Iran have claimed that '90% of' executions in the country are related to drug offenses. Mohammad Javad Larijani, Secretary of the Human Rights Headquarters of the Iranian Judiciary, previously stated that after nearly forty years of executions for drug offenses, 'no desirable result has been achieved.' Therefore, efforts have been made in the Islamic Consultative Assembly to change laws in this area, including a proposal to amend the death penalty for drug offenders. Ali Bakhtiar, a member of the Judicial and Legal Commission, mentioned that under this proposal, instead of the death penalty and life imprisonment, a prison sentence of 25 to 30 years is to be considered for individuals who do not play a managerial role in trafficking or do not resort to armed actions for this purpose. A fine ranging from one billion to ten billion rials is also among the provisions being discussed in the commission. According to Bakhtiar, another clause of this proposal, which relates to the amount of industrial and traditional drugs kept or transported to determine the death penalty, is also under review in the commission. However, this representative added that the death penalty will still be considered for individuals who use children or vulnerable individuals for drug transport. In this context, despite a significant decrease in executions in Iran, one of the largest drug traffickers sentenced to death 'has been released on bail.'