Child executions violate international law: “[No] capital punishment… shall be imposed for offences committed by Article 37(a) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child persons below eighteen years of age.”
In Late April of last year I had the privilege to a former Miss World Canada who has since become a household name for many around the world for her strenuous efforts in alerting international opinion and Human Rights Organizations on the plight of an 18 year old compatriot, Nazanin Fatehi, who risked imminent execution in Iran for a crime committed only in an act of self defense (Read: ). According to the United Nations, a child is a person under the age of 18, which was indeed the case of Nazanin Fatehi when she fatally stabbed one of three men who tried to rape her and her niece in March 2005. The predicament of the young girl moved international public opinion thanks to the campaign launched by Afshin-Jam to halt the execution order which eventually led to a retrial of the case and ultimate pardoning and freedom of the young girl. The success of this campaign would have not been possible without the help of many of YOU readers, human rights activists, the International Press moved by this case, as well as many professional intermediaries whose intervention was determinant to the happy conclusion of this Human Rights operation. If this public international mobilization proved anything, it was that public pressure and individual initiatives rallied by personalities in the public eye, can indeed have an effect on the decision making of the Iranian Judiciary and ultimately on the country’s leadership in abiding to International Law. In the light of another recent operation of similar nature led by the French government that led to the
