WUNRN
UN
General Assembly Approves Resolution Calling for Death Penalty Moratorium
UNITED
NATIONS: The U.N. General Assembly called for a moratorium on the
death penalty as a step toward abolishing all executions, a move hailed by
opponents of capital punishment and criticized by supporters including
the U.S., Iran and China...........
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December 19, 2007
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Iran Hangs Three
Men & a Woman
December
20, 2007
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has hanged three men
and a woman, a newspaper reported on Thursday, in the latest of a series of
executions that have drawn criticism from rights groups and European states.
Two of the men
and the woman had been convicted of murder, while the third man was executed
for rape.
Murder, rape,
adultery, and drug trafficking are among crimes punishable by death under
Iran's Islamic sharia law, imposed since the 1979 revolution.
"The four
convicted people, including a woman, were hanged on Wednesday morning inside
the Evin prison in Tehran," said the state-run newspaper, Iran.
It said that
Ghasem Yaghoubi had kidnapped and raped 19 young boys in a year.
Amnesty
International has protested to Iran over the number of executions, which
according to its report in April had doubled to at least 177 people in 2006.
The number of
executions, many in public, has risen since July with the launch of a summer
crackdown on "immoral behaviour". During the campaign, police have
arrested dozens of drug addicts, smugglers, rapists and murderers.
The crackdown
has also included an initiative to confront women who fail to adhere to Iran's
strict Islamic dress codes.
Before the
latest series of hangings that began in July, Amnesty said at least 124 people
had been put to death in 2007. Based on those figures, Iran has now executed
more than 150 people so far this year.
The European
Union in May criticised Tehran's human rights record and expressed concern
about the use of the death penalty in the Islamic state. Western rights groups
have called on Iran to abolish it.
Iran routinely
dismisses criticism of rights abuses, particularly from Western organisations
or countries, saying it is acting on the basis of sharia. It usually responds
by citing what it says are abuses in the West.
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