Brussels, 12 November 2008–The European Union categorically condemns the hanging in Isfahan on Wednesday 29 October of Gholam-Reza H., a young Afghan aged 19, convicted for a murder he was said to have committed two years earlier.
The European Union is very concerned by this latest hanging, which dashes the hopes aroused by the circular adopted by the Iranian authorities on 15 October, supposedly banning executions of persons who were minors at the time of the crimes of which they were convicted. It urges Iran to extend the scope of this circular to executions where lex talionis is being applied. Today that law accounts for all the executions of individuals who were minors at the time of the crimes of which they were convicted.

The European Union deplores the fact that Iran is the country which executes the largest number of persons for crimes committed when they were minors. These punishments flagrantly contravene the international obligations and commitments of Iran as expressly set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibit the execution of minors and of persons convicted of crimes committed when they were minors. The European Union urges Iran to bring its legislation and its practices into line with these documents which it voluntarily adopted and ratified.
The European Union urgently calls on the Islamic Republic of Iran to consider an appropriate way of dealing with juvenile offenders, such as youth courts and sentences designed mainly to be educational and to facilitate their social rehabilitation.
The Candidate Countries Turkey, Croatia* and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia*, the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, and the EFTA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, members of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova align themselves with this declaration.