Children as Young as 11 Reported Executed in Iran

Thousands of people have been hanged, shot or stoned to death in Iran since the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, Amnesty International said today.

The human rights organization said it has received reports of executions of children as young as 11 years old.

In prisons and detention centers throughout the country, thousands more people have been flogged, sexually abused and subjected to other forms of torture, including having their hands, feet or fingers amputated, Amnesty International said in a report.

It said it has no precise figures for the number of political and criminal prisoners detained and executed in Iran because it has not been permitted to visit the country since 1979.

The report said many people were arrested, imprisoned and executed simply for being suspected of belonging to opposition groups or holding certain political views. Other victims belonged to ethnic minorities or banned religions, such as the Bahai faith.

Amnesty International recorded 115 executions in Iran last year, according to the report, but it said untold executions go unreported. The most common methods are hanging and firing squad, it said, but stoning is used for some sexual offenses.

It quoted the Iranian Penal Code as saying: “The stones should not be too large, so that a person dies on being hit by one or two of them.”