22  April 2008
 
Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Pasteur Street, Vali Asr Avenue, South of Serah-e Jomhouri
Tehran1316814737, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info@dadgostary-tehran.ir (FAO Ayatollah Shahroudi in subject line)
 
RE: Naser Qasemi, Mohammed Reza Haddadi, Reza Hejazi, Iman Hashemi
 
Your Excellency:
 
I am writing to request an immediate halt to the planned executions of the four young men described
                                    below, who were all under 18 years when arrested and convicted of crimes they allegedly committed.
 
Naser Qasemi (now age 23) was accused of murder at age 15.  He and his uncle (who was armed) tried to steal maize from a farm. 
                                    In the fight that ensued after they were discovered, a farm worker was killed. 
                                    Naser Qasemi’s uncle escaped and Naser was arrested and charged.  His
                                    execution is imminent.
 
Mohammed Reza Haddadi (now age 18) was sentenced to
                                    death in 2004 for the murder of a man in 2003.  His co-defendants (both over age
                                    18) convinced him to confess in return for a payment to his family.  At the trial,
                                    Mohammed Haddadi retracted his confession.  The two co-defendants, who received
                                    lesser sentences, later withdrew their testimony.  
 
Reza Hejazi (now age 19) was in a small group involved in a dispute that resulted in
                                    the stabbing of a man when he was age 15.  He was arrested and sentenced to Quesas
                                    (retribution).  Under Iranian law, he should have been charged as a juvenile,
                                    but was not.  He will be executed if there is no agreement on the retribution.
 
Iman Hashemi (now age 18) was arrested at age 17 with his brother, Majid, for
                                    the fatal stabbing of a man in a fight.  After Majid was arrested, Iman Hashemi
                                    said he was responsible but later said he was coerced.  Despite his family’s
                                    insistence that he was innocent, he was sentenced in 2007.  Majid, distraught,
                                    set himself on fire in 2007 and died four months later of his injuries.
 
Iran is a state
                                    party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits the use of the death penalty against people convicted of
                                    crimes committed when they were under 18 years of age.
 
Please
                                    call on the authorities to 
 
·          
                                    commute the death sentences of Naser Qasemi, Mohammed Reza Haddadi, Reza Hejazi, and Iman Hashemi, and
·          
                                    declare a moratorium on implementation of the death penalty as called for the United Nations General Assembly
                                    in December 2007.
 
Thank you for your attention to my concerns,
 
 
cc:        Iranian Interests Section, Embassy of Pakistan
           
                                    2209 Wisconsin Avenue NW
           
                                    Washington, DC 20007
            Email: requests@daftar.org
           
                                    Fax: 1-202-965-1073