Iran: investigate?

In Saveh, southwest of Tehran, 3 men are hanged in public.
IRNA reported that they were convicted for rape and that the verdict was endorsed by the Supreme Court.




Armed bandits kidnapped 31 passengers on the Chabahar-Iranshahr road in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan.
They also attacked a number of passing cars, set them on fire, wounded some of the passengers and took some people hostage.
Fars Newsagency reports that the bandits have abducted the director of the education ministry's regional office in Chabahar, Ali Zare'ee.
A local ministry official said that Za'ee was accompanied by an expert, who was freed, being a Balouchi, while Za'ee is Fars.


Iranian police anti-drug squad has busted an international band of drug traffickers. 90 members of the band were arrested, including 85 individuals from Tanzania, Nigeria, and Ghana, two individuals from Pakistan and three Iranians.
General Hamid Reza Hossein-Abadi told reporters that they have received reports early this year that African nationals smuggled drugs through Iran.
After five months of intensive investigation together with police in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey, they could identify this international network of drug traffickers.



According to an article in The Observer Iran has hanged up to 30 people in the past month.
Many executions have been carried out in public. Opposition sources say at least three of the dead were political activists, contradicting government insistence that it is targeting 'thugs' and dangerous criminals.
The executions have coincided with a crackdown on student activists and academics accused of trying to foment a 'soft revolution' .
The government has also sought to publicise executions conducted behind closed doors. Last month state television broadcast footage of 12 condemned men as they were about to be hanged in Tehran's Evin prison.
However, there have been signs of official disquiet over the recent trend. Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the relatively moderate judiciary chief, has openly criticised President Ahmadinejad's government on a range of issues and also ordered to investigate claims that student activists were tortured during a recent detention in Evin prison.
He also was unhappy over the stoning to death last month of a man convicted of adultery after he had ordered a stay of execution.
However, for the moment it doesn't look like the end of the mass executions is near.
Saeed Mortazavi,Tehran's prosecutor has announced that he is seeking the death penalty against 17 'hooligans'.


In Iran there are childoffenders, still on death row.

Children are being hanged to death.
A child will be hanged to death.
Poster amnesty.nl