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On 20 April 2011, two juvenile offenders – identified only as “A.N” and “H.B” - were among three individuals hanged in public in Bandar Abbas, southern Iran, after being convicted over a rape and murder committed when they were only 17. A fourth man was hanged at the same time for rape. “Yet again, Iran has distinguished itself by being the only country this year to execute juvenile offenders.  No more juvenile offenders must die at the hands of the state,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme. Not only were these young men executed for crimes committed when aged under 18, but their executions were carried out in public.  Public executions are not only a violation of the right to life, but are a gross affront to human dignity which cannot be tolerated.”