Ebadi rights group protests Iran mass execution

Ebadi rights group protests Iran mass execution

TEHRAN (AFP) — The rights group run by Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi on Monday protested at the hanging by Iran of 29 criminals in a mass execution and said it doubted the convicts had been given a fair trial.

"The Defenders of Human Rights Centre... is against capital punishment and believes it should be removed from the list of punishments in any country," the group said in a statement.

"Unfortunately in recent years some have been hanged en masse in Iran so that Iran ranks the second country in the world in terms of the number of executions," it added.

Iran on Sunday hanged 29 men convicted of offences including drug trafficking, murder and rape in the largest mass execution in years.

The latest hangings brought to at least 155 the number of people executed in Iran this year, according to an AFP count.

"It seems that the hanged men were deprived of a fair judicial procedure," the Defenders of Human Rights Centre said.

"No authority has the right to deprive defendants of their rights during the arrest, trial and tribunal procedures as well as the right to legal representation," it said.

The group, a frequent critic of the government over its treatment of dissidents and rights activists, was formed by five prominent rights lawyers and is headed by Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2003.

Amnesty International reported that in 2007 Iran applied the death penalty more often than any other country apart from China, executing 317 people.

As part of an unprecedented crackdown to improve security in society, Iran has stepped up its use of the death penalty -- facing repeated complaints by Western right groups.

The authorities have defended the hangings, saying capital punishment is an effective deterrent that is used only after an exhaustive judicial process.

But Ebadi's group dismissed that justification, saying: "The use of capital punishment will have no effect in cutting crime and will rather increase crime."

Capital offences in the Islamic republic include murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and adultery.

Earlier this month parliament was reported to be considering a bill which could see the death penalty also being imposed on those deemed to promote corruption, prostitution and apostasy on the Internet.

Iran hopes that executing drug dealers and thugs as well as the adoption of stricter punishments will send a strong warning to criminals.

But Ebadi's human rights advocates also voiced concern over what they described as the "faked" charge of being a "thug," saying such terms do not exist in the penal laws.

A year ago, citing "promotion of social security," the authorities launched an unprecedented crackdown against women and "thugs" whose behaviour was deemed an affront to the country's strict Islamic moral code.