GENEVA – Iran has witnessed a dramatic increase in executions so far in 2011, United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay said yesterday and her office said the rate was three times that of last year.
Expressing alarm at the increase, she said at least 66 people, including three known to be political dissidents, were executed in January. Ms Pillay’s aides said they had recorded about 300 executions for the whole of last year.
“We have urged Iran, time and time again, to halt executions,” the UN high commissioner for human rights said in a statement.
“I am very dismayed that instead of heeding our calls, the Iranian authorities appear to have stepped up the use of the death penalty.”
Ms Pillay’s spokesman, Rupert Colville, said tracking of official Iranian reports and the country’s media showed that last year the figure was running at about 18 to 25 a month. “So this year it is triple that rate,” he said.
Ms Pillay, a former South African high court judge, said she was deeply concerned at the large number of people reported to be under sentence of death who included political prisoners, drug offenders and even juveniles.
“Dissent is not a crime,” she said. “It is absolutely unacceptable for individuals to be imprisoned for association with opposition groups, let alone be executed for their political views or affiliations.”
Such behaviour by a government was in violation of the UN’s international covenant on civil and political rights which Iran has signed. – (Reuters)