Head of judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei
c/o Embassy of Iran to the European Union
Avenue Franklin Roosevelt No. 15
1050 Bruxelles, Belgium

Dear Mr Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei,

Hossein Shahbazi, aged 22, remains at imminent risk of execution in Adelabad prison in Shiraz, Fars province, following his conviction related to a crime that took place when he was just 17 years old. His five previous scheduled executions were postponed following public outcries.

Hossein Shahbazi was arrested on 30 December 2018 and denied access to a lawyer and his family for 11 days while held at a detention facility run by the investigation unit of Iran’s police (Agahi) in Shiraz. He has said that interrogators subjected him to torture and other ill-treatment during this time. On 13 January 2020, following a grossly unfair trial during which his forced “confessions” were used as evidence against him, Branch 3 of Criminal Court One in Fars province convicted him of murder and sentenced him to death.

His conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court on 16 June 2020. His request for a judicial review of his case in 2021 was rejected by the Supreme Court. In the ruling of the Supreme Court, reviewed by Amnesty International, the judicial authorities acknowledged that he was under 18 at the time of the crime, but stated that the Legal Medicine Organization of Iran, which is a state forensic institute under the supervision of the judiciary, had found that he had attained “mental growth and maturity” at the time of the crime and therefore merited the death penalty. This and other opinions from the Legal Medicine Organization of Iran confirming the “maturity” of children at the time of the crime again highlights the complicity of doctors affiliated with this state body in the ongoing assault on children’s right to life in Iran.

Iran continues to sentence to death and execute people who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime for which they were convicted, in violation of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I urge you to immediately halt the scheduled execution of Hossein Shahbazi, quash both his conviction and death sentence, and grant him a fair retrial in full compliance with international law and the principles of juvenile justice, excluding coerced “confessions”, and without resorting to the death penalty. I urge you to protect him from further torture and other ill-treatment and investigate his torture allegations, bringing anyone found responsible to justice in fair trials without resort to the death penalty. I call on you to immediately establish an official moratorium on all executions and completely abolish the use of the death penalty against persons who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime, in line with Iran’s obligations under international law, pending full abolition of the death penalty. 

Yours sincerely,