Amnesty International Calls for Halt to Execution of Salar Shadizadi

On Monday, August 5, Amnesty International issued a statement urging Iranian authorities to refrain from executing Salar Shadizadi, a teenager accused of murder. Salar Shadizadi, who is accused of committing murder at the age of 15, is scheduled to be executed on August 1 in Rasht prison, following confirmation from the Supreme Court. He was arrested in February 2007 after the body of one of his friends was found in their yard, and police accused him of striking the victim's neck. Amnesty International states that the circumstances of the murder and the details of the accusation are unclear to them. In its statement, Amnesty reminded the Iranian government that Iran has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which strictly prohibits the execution of individuals under 18 years of age. Accordingly, Amnesty International has called on Iranian officials to 'immediately' halt the execution of Salar Shadizadi and to limit themselves to issuing a prison sentence for him. According to Amnesty, at least 72 individuals under the legal age were executed in Iran from 2005 to 2014, and at least 160 other minors have been sentenced to death. In a statement released on August 1, Amnesty noted that approximately 700 people have been executed in Iran over the past six months, warning that if Iran continues this trend, more than 1,000 people will be executed by the end of the current year. This warning aligns with Amnesty's concerns about the 'significant' increase in executions in Iran, as well as reports from UN reporters regarding the 'sudden' rise in executions in the country.