![\"2016-05-13_23-20-44\"](\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/05\/2016-05-13_23-20-44.jpg\" "\\"2016-05-13_23-20-44\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Iranian regime must urgently halt the scheduled execution this Sunday of a teenager who was just 15 years old at the time of his arrest, Amnesty International has said.<\/p>\n
Alireza Tajiki, now 19 years old, was sentenced to death in April 2013 after a conviction by the regime’s criminal court in Fars Province, southern Iran.<\/p>\n
Amnesty said his conviction was primarily on the basis of \u201c’confessions’ extracted through torture which he repeatedly retracted in court.\u201d<\/p>\n
His execution is due to take place on Sunday, May 15 in Shiraz\u2019s Adel Abad Prison in Fars Province.<\/p>\n
\u201cImposing the death penalty on someone who was a child at the time of the crime flies in the face of international human rights law, which absolutely prohibits the use of the death penalty for crimes committed under the age of 18. It is particularly horrendous that the Iranian authorities are adamant to proceed with the execution when this case was marked by serious fair trial concerns and primarily relied on torture-tainted evidence,\u201d said James Lynch, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.<\/p>\n
\u201cIran\u2019s bloodstained record of sending juvenile offenders to the gallows, routinely after grossly unfair trials, makes an absolute mockery of juvenile justice and shamelessly betrays the commitments Iran has made to children\u2019s rights. The Iranian authorities must immediately halt this execution and grant Alireza Tajiki a fair retrial where the death penalty and coerced \u2018confessions\u2019 play no part,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Iranian regime to establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.<\/p>\n