Iran Urged To Halt Execution Of Man Convicted Of Raping Child

Amnesty International has called on Iran to halt the execution of a man sentenced to death for the rape of a minor.

The London-based rights watchdog said Farhad Salehi Jabehdar, 30, is scheduled to be executed on April 13 in the northern province of Alborz.

His execution has been scheduled even though a request for a judicial review of his case is pending before the Supreme Court.

Iran’s Supreme Court on April 11 informed Jabehdar’s lawyer that the judicial review request will be examined in several weeks but rejected the lawyer’s request to order a stay.

In a statement on April 11, Amnesty said that “in addition to the fact that the use of the death penalty for the crime of rape is prohibited under international law, the death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment and is never the answer.”

Jabehdar was arrested in June 2018 in connection with the sexual assault of a 10-year-old child in 2017.

He was convicted of “forced male-male intercourse” and sentenced to death in 2019. The conviction and sentence were upheld by Supreme Court.

The parents of the child have formally requested that the authorities not impose the death penalty on Jabehdar.

Iran is the world’s second-most-active executioner after China, according to Amnesty.