Member of Parliament: Issuing Death Sentences Means Raising Soldiers for Drug Traffickers

The spokesperson for the Judicial and Legal Commission of the Iranian Parliament stated that issuing death sentences for all individuals involved in the drug trafficking cycle causes 'harm' to their families, arguing that this action effectively trains 'soldiers' for drug gangs by pushing the children of those executed into drug dealing. On Wednesday, April 25, Hassan Norouzi, the spokesperson, added that the children of executed individuals are forced to turn to drugs out of 'poverty.' He criticized the issuance of death sentences for everyone in the 'drug trafficking cycle,' noting that 'many children of the executed... become isolated from society, and no agency hires these individuals, nor is anyone willing to marry them.' According to this representative, 'in such circumstances, soldiers are trained to cooperate with traffickers, leading them to collaborate with drug gangs.' He mentioned the abandonment of the families of the executed and their deprivation of social support as one of the most serious harms resulting from issuing death sentences for all individuals involved in the drug trafficking cycle. This representative stated that if the final draft of the bill to reduce the death penalty is approved in the open session of Parliament, this law would be 'retroactive, thus including prisoners sentenced to death under the new law.' Mr. Norouzi also pointed out that the issuance of multiple death sentences for drug traffickers in Iran has not been deterrent, calling for a reduction of the death penalty to imprisonment for some offenders and punishment for the 'main leaders' of drug trafficking gangs. A member of the Legal and Judicial Commission said that in prison, these individuals should be taught skills and knowledge to help 'support their dependents and not enter society as a burden after serving their sentence.' He estimated the monthly cost of maintaining each prisoner at 'up to four and a half million tomans' and stated that the high cost of maintaining these prisoners should be reduced. Norouzi described the conditions of prisons as inadequate and said that prisons should be transformed from 'an environment producing crime into a university.' Previously, another member of Parliament had reported the existence of five thousand drug traffickers in Iran 'on death row,' indicating that there is no proportionality between the crime and punishment for many of them. Ali Bakhtiar, a member of the Judicial and Legal Commission, made these remarks regarding the proposed reform of the drug law. According to him, these five thousand individuals 'generally include those who managed drug trafficking or armed transport, etc., but many others are on death row who, although they committed a crime, should not be sentenced to death, as there is no proportionality between their crime and punishment.' Judicial officials of the Islamic Republic have repeatedly stated that '90 percent' of executions in Iran are related to drug offenses. However, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the Secretary of the Human Rights Headquarters of the Judiciary of Iran, previously stated that after about forty years of executions for drug offenses, 'no desirable result has been achieved.'