Iran hangs seven people

[Kiwi]

Iran hangs seven people

AP

Thursday 10th January, 2008


TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran executed by hanging seven men convicted of murder and drug smuggling, local media reported on Thursday, bringing to 21 the number of people executed since the beginning of the year.

The state–owned Iran newspaper reported that two men identified only by their first names were hanged on the charge of murder Wednesday in the southern town of Jahorm, some 1,100 kilometers south of the capital, Tehran.

Another local daily, Jomhuri Eslami reported three smugglers and two murderers were hanged in the eastern city of Birjand and the northern town of Tonekabon respectively on Wednesday and Tuesday.
Calls to judiciary officials were not immediately returned on Thursday due to the weekend in Iran.

Last week, Iran reported the hanging of 12 men and one woman convicted of murder and drug smuggling, and on Sunday reported the hanging of a convicted murderer in the central city of Arak.

From July until the end of 2007, Iran executed more than 55 people on charges of murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping, which, along with drug trafficking, are all capital offenses in the Islamic Republic.

’’It is unpleasant news we hear in 21st century about this return to a punishment when an alternative such as life prison is available,’’ said lawyer and human rights activist, Mohammad Ali Dadkhah.

’’According to the constitution, the justice department is assigned to correction and not just to implement capital punishment,’’ added Dadkhah, a founder along with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi of the Center for the Defenders of Human Rights.