News

The rights group headed by Iran's Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi condemned on Monday the hanging of four youths who were minors at the time of their offences.

"Four minors who were under 18 at the time of committing the crimes have been hanged," the group said in a report on the status of human rights in Iran for three months to September.

The conservative judiciary maintains that minors are not executed, and Iran is a party to international conventions on child rights, whose signatories commit not to execute convicts who were under 18 at the time of an offence.

Ebadi's rights group report identified the four as Rahman Shahidi and Hassan Mozaffar, who were hanged in the southern port city of Bushehr, Reza Hejazi who was executed in the central city of Isfahan and Behnam Zaree, executed in the southern city of Shiraz.

No further details were given.

In August press reports said Zaree, 18, was executed for murdering another teenager in a streetfight three years ago, and that Hejazi, 20, was executed for stabbing a man to death in a fight when he was 15.

Despite Iran's insistence it does not execute minors, 17-year-old Mohammad Hassanzadeh was also hanged in the western city of Sanandaj in June.