At least 11 people were sent to the gallows last week, including convicted serial killer Mehdi Faraji. The 37-year-old robbed and killed five middle-aged women between May 2009 and spring 2010 in Qazvin, west of Tehran. Pictures of his public hanging show an unidentified boy looking about 12 pulling the table on which the condemned stood with a noose around his neck.
Some believe he may be a relative of one of the murdered women as it is common in Iran for victims’ family members to be involved in an execution.
“According to our reports, a young boy was used to draw the chair Mehdi was standing on and carry out the execution,” Iran Human Rights said on its website.
A spokesman for the human rights organization, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said, “These barbaric executions and using ordinary citizens, especially minors, to carry out these executions must be condemned by the world community. Iranian leaders must be held accountable for promoting a culture of murder and brutality in Iran.”
According to Amnesty International, Iran was second only to China last year in the number of executions. The organization says the Iranian government acknowledged 252 executions in 2010, but that the number was more likely over 550.
Various groups have put the number hanged thus far this year at from 143 to 223. At the low end, that amounts to one a day.
The 11 men hanged this past week were executed for crimes such as murder, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking. Five were hanged in public, including two sexual offenders who were convicted of raping children in Kermanshah.