Efforts to Abolish Death Penalty for Drug Traffickers

Aliyar Malekshahi, the head of the Judicial and Legal Commission of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, stated that the removal of the death penalty for drug trafficking requires a "national consensus." He mentioned on Saturday that this proposal still needs what he called "fine-tuning" in the Judicial and Legal Commission of the Assembly, adding that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches must also provide their assessments on this matter. According to the House of the Nation news agency, 70 members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly have signed a proposal titled "Abolition of the Death Penalty for Drug Trafficking," which, if approved, would limit the death penalty to traffickers who engage in armed activities. Radio Farda sought the opinion of Nemat Ahmadi, a lawyer in Tehran, regarding this issue: Nemat Ahmadi stated that almost all members of parliament, especially representatives from rural areas who work directly with the families of prisoners or those sentenced to death for drug-related offenses, know that this law is ineffective. This law has been in place for over 37 years since a few months after the victory of the revolution and has not been able to stabilize the drug situation. More than 4,000 police officers have been martyred in the fight against drugs, and we have over 12,000 veterans. I do not have accurate statistics on the number of executions carried out by traffickers. Nearly 70% of our prisoners are related to drugs, whether they are distributors, carriers, or possessors, along with some consumers. Therefore, this law has failed. This type of hard approach has proven to be ineffective. Thus, we can conclude that if this approach has failed, could replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment (noting that this applies to individuals who have not engaged in armed drug trafficking) have a significant impact on reducing drug trafficking or improving the situation? No, you cannot intensify or prohibit something that has become commonplace in society and sometimes benefits from it through law. There is no result in reducing it. The death penalty is not effective. It has not been able to prevent it. In a country where employment is low, factories are closed, and unemployment is high, trafficking creates motivation. The number of consumers is increasing day by day. My opposition to the death penalty in drug-related matters is because I say it has not been able to prevent it. Life imprisonment cannot either. The consequences of the death penalty in drug cases are severe. Families become uncertain, their children become lost, and it has negative social effects. Perhaps now life imprisonment is somewhat better than the death penalty. To what extent do you think the discussion of such a law is currently influenced by international pressures, given that in many cases it has been pointed out that the rising execution statistics partly concern individuals referred to as drug traffickers, and they are also included in these executions? To what extent is this issue now being discussed because of this? I am looking at the overall issue. I am not looking at the details. I am looking at the fact that it has not been able to prevent this social epidemic. The negative effects that the death penalty has. It has subjected us to attacks in international communities and international bodies. It has placed us among countries with the highest executions. While if we did not have the death penalty for drugs, our retribution cases would be much lower compared to surrounding countries. If adjustments are made to the way we punish drug-related offenses, even our prisoners would be significantly lower than elsewhere. In any case, the goal of the members of parliament is to address a social ill that we have not been able to treat for over thirty years. To what extent is there hope that such a proposal will be accepted, considering that the head of the Judicial and Legal Commission of the Islamic Consultative Assembly also stated that this proposal is still raw and has not been reviewed by experts in the commission? In any case, in parliament, a proposal is presented to 15 representatives, it comes to the assembly, and if the abolition of the death penalty is deemed favorable and appropriate by other representatives, it will certainly receive votes. We have the budget bill until Nowruz, then we have elections in Esfand, and then post-election, and I do not think it will reach the ninth parliament.