Opposition of the Drug Control Headquarters to the Mitigation of the Death Penalty

A senior official from the Drug Control Headquarters states that the mitigation of the death penalty for drug traffickers in Iran will lead the fight against drugs to 'retrogression' and cause a 'significant increase in the wave of trafficking and retailing.' Ali Alizadeh, the Director General of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs at the Drug Control Headquarters, expressed regret in an interview with ISNA that the headquarters could not convince members of parliament regarding the consequences of replacing the death penalty for drug traffickers and criticized the parliamentarians for their insistence on passing this law. He stated that the Drug Control Headquarters believes that 'temporary and piecemeal legal interventions not only do not help the fight against drugs but may lead it to retrogression.' Mr. Alizadeh considered the replacement of the death penalty with imprisonment for some drug traffickers in Iran to be 'inconsistent' with the overall policies related to reducing the prison population due to the 'increase in the number of prisoners and the financial burden of maintaining them and building special camps for drug offenders.' He added that this amendment 'ignores effective blows to the financial foundations of traffickers' and, in addition to 'creating motivation and morale among offenders,' will lead to a 'significant increase in the wave of trafficking and retailing and consequently an increase in the number of addicts and the spread of consumption.' The Director General of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs at the Drug Control Headquarters discussed the opposition of this headquarters to the mitigation of the death penalty, which also had negative reactions, stating that 'failure to observe proportionality in punishment has consequences and effects that have been and continue to be the basis for the headquarters' objection to the explanation of alternative and deterrent punishments.' Ali Alizadeh cited this opposition based on 'expert opinions from specialized agencies within the headquarters and also multi-year studies based on the 38-year experience of the Drug Control Headquarters' and deemed the media reflections of this opposition 'unfair.' His reference is to the addition of an article to the Anti-Drug Law approved in 1988 by the Islamic Consultative Assembly last fall, which states that prison sentences and fines will replace some death sentences for those involved in drug trafficking. Recently, a directive from Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, the head of the judiciary, has been published in the media regarding the suspension of the death penalty for drug offenders. In this directive, he called for a re-examination of drug-related cases. This directive has been welcomed by human rights organizations that have consistently criticized the Islamic Republic for its high execution rates. The Iran Human Rights Campaign, in a statement, referred to thousands of death sentences related to drug offenses and the possibility of their suspension, stating that 'Iran has taken a positive first step.' Amnesty International also stated in a statement that 'if [the recent directive] is properly implemented, hundreds of people will be saved from execution. Although this is just a beginning.' According to estimates from Iranian officials, there are currently five thousand prisoners sentenced to death for drug-related crimes. Yahya Kamali Pour, the Deputy Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, stated to ISNA last November that with the implementation of recent reforms, 'four thousand people will be saved from execution.'