The UN Human Rights Office released a statement on Tuesday condemning Iran’s execution of 17-year-old Hamidreza Azari and 22-year-old Milad Zohrevand on November 24. The office urged Iran to impose a moratorium on death penalty cases and to cease “using criminal procedures to punish political activists and others for exercising their rights to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.” 

Iranian authorities executed Azari over accusations that he committed murder in April, when he was only 16 years old. At the time of his execution, Azari was only 17. The UN Human Rights Office deplored his execution and reminded Iran of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In particular, Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of Child provides that “[n]either capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age.” However, according to the Islamic Penal Code of Iran, girls over 9 lunar years and boys over 15 lunar years are subject to death penalty if convicted of “crimes against God” or “retribution crimes.”

The UN Human Rights Office also stated that they were troubled by the execution of 22-year-old Milad Zohrevand, the eighth person executed for the September 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests. The 2022 protests were triggered by the death of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by morality police for violating the country’s mandatory hijab law. The UN Human Rights Office expressed concerns on the lack of due process in Zohrevand’s trial and the arrest of Zohrevand’s parents following his execution. 

The UN Human Rights Office pointed out that Iran is one of the countries with most people executed. According to the statistics of Amnesty International, Iran ranked second in the list of countries where most executions took place in 2022. The UN Human Rights Office strongly advocated for the universal abolition of the death penalty. So far, there have been around 170 countries that have either abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty.

The UN Human Rights Office has urged Iran to “immediately halt the application of the death penalty and establish a moratorium on its use.”