At least 1,200 people were executed in 2007 and many more were killed
by the state, in secret, in countries including China, Mongolia and
Viet Nam.
A prominent trade unionist in Iran has been released from detention after serving a one-year prison sentence.
Iranian feminist and journalist Parvin Ardalan was prevented from
leaving Iran on Sunday to travel to Sweden where she was to receive the
2007 Olof Palme Prize in Stockholm.
The Iranian authorities are continuing to harass activists working to defend women’s rights.
The Iranian authorities should cease their harassment of women human rights defenders and take urgent steps to dismantle the discriminatory legislation they are seeking to change, Amnesty International said in a report published today.
As nine women and two men in Iran wait to be stoned to death, Amnesty International today called on the Iranian authorities to abolish death by stoning and impose an immediate moratorium on this horrific practice, specifically designed to increase the suffering of the victims.
Eleven people in Iran - nine of them women - are waiting to be stoned to death on charges of adultery. Many have been sentenced after grossly unfair trials.
Amnesty International condemns the execution, on 4 December 2007, of Makwan Moloudzadeh, an Iranian Kurdish child offender, following a grossly flawed trial for an offence he allegedly committed at the age of 13. Execution for a crime committed at the age of 13 is a gross abuse of international human rights standards, which prohibit the execution of those convicted of crimes committed under the age of 18.
Activists campaigning for gender equality in Iran are unable to
exercise their rights to freedom of expression and association, as
shown by a number of recent arrests.
The execution of 18-year-old Sina Paymard, which was planned to take place on 17 July, has been postponed.
