Iran Executes Sixth Juvenile Offender This Year, 26th Since 2005
Calling Iran’s execution on August 26, 2008 of juvenile offender Behnam Zare abhorrent, Human Rights Watch urged the Iranian judiciary to immediately commute the sentences of more than 130 other prisoners facing death for crimes committed while children.

Zare is the sixth juvenile offender Iran has executed this year. No other country is known to have executed a juvenile offender in 2008. Since January 2005, Iran has executed at least 26 juvenile offenders. During the same period, only four other countries – Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, and Pakistan – are known to have executed any juvenile offenders, with a combined total of six such executions in the four countries.

“Iran leads the world in executing juvenile offenders” said Clarisa Bencomo, researcher on children’s rights in the Middle East at Human Rights Watch. “Everywhere else, countries are moving to end this abhorrent practice, but in Iran the numbers of death sentences seem to be increasing.”

As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Iran is obligated to prohibit executions of persons under 18 at the time of the crime.
Link to HRW