Amnesty: Iran executions up four-fold in 2011

[toomuchtime_]

Iran executed four times more people in 2011 than the previous year, according to an Amnesty International report released Tuesday. The public executions, it said, are used by Iranian authorities to strike fear into society.

Among those executed were juvenile offenders, which is illegal under international law. Most of the offenders executed were sentenced for drug offenses, according to the report.

The report also detailed the intensification of a crackdown against political opposition figures ahead of parliamentary elections taking place this week in the country.

The report also detailed how Iran "dramatically escalated" a crackdown on dissent in the run-up to this week's parliamentary elections, arresting lawyers, students and journalists and targeting electronic media.

“In Iran today you put yourself at risk if you do anything that might fall outside the increasingly narrow confines of what the authorities deem socially or politically acceptable,” Amnesty official Ann Harrison said.

“This dreadful record really highlights the hypocrisy of the Iranian government's attempts to show solidarity with protesters in Egypt, Bahrain and other countries in the region," she added.

"Anything from setting up a social group on the internet, forming or joining an NGO (non-governmental organization), or expressing your opposition to the status quo can land you in prison," she said in a statement.

In addition to the political opposition, authorities in Tehran have also intensified their harassment and imprisonment of human rights and women's rights activists, and shut down a number of NGOs, the report said.

Amnesty: Iran executions up four-fold in 2... JPost - Middle East

 

[amir]

Amnesty International: Iran cracks down ahead of vote
UPI Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:29 AM PST
LONDON, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- A high number of executions in Iran "may be" a strategy to discourage reformists in Iran from rising up ahead of Friday elections, Amnesty International said.

 

[Capstone]

At this rate, they'll surpass the death toll exacted by the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan in no time flat!