According to Norooz, an eighteen-year-old boy named Sina Paimard (سینا پایمرد) will be executed tonight for murdering a man when he was sixteen. Reportedly, the victim’s family have asked for the equivalent of $200,000. His family has been able to provide half of that money, but the victim’s family insist on the execution of Sina. Despite international treaties, Islamic Republic does execute minors in many occasions.
Sina was being prepared for the execution on September 2006, two weeks after he turned eighteen. Human Rights Watch issued a statement at that time, condemning the decision. According to HRW, Sina also suffers levels of mental disability. He is alive because he asked to play flute as the last thing before his execution. That convinced the victim’s family to cancel his execution, at least for a short while.
Update: Execution postponed for one week.
I take it that the boy wouldn’t be executed by the state if the family could afford to pay the money!
It may be sacrilege to point this out, but this is an example of where Sharia is barbaric an entirely inferior. Other systems of justice don’t do anything as bad as mixing criminal punishment and criminal proceedings with civil proceedings and civil judgments.
So in the rest of the world, in a criminal proceeding punishment is meted out not for the harm done a family, but for the harm that crime does to the society – it is the state, not the family, that has final say as to what will be tried and under what charges, for instance. If the family of the victim (or the victim if he still lives) wants recompense, he can sue the defendant, but that would be an entirely separate case and would not affect the punishment.
You may remember that OJ won his criminal case (was found not guilty and was not punished) but lost his civil case (he had to pay). Separate cases.
Comment by Josh Scholar — July 17, 2007 @ 2:06 pm
Of course you were pointing out another problem in the Iranian, that it executes minors.
Comment by Josh Scholar — July 17, 2007 @ 2:07 pm
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Pingback by Kamangir (Archer) - کمانگیر » Blog Archive » Stop the Execution of Minor — July 17, 2007 @ 2:59 pm
[...] Sina Paimard will be executed tomorrow morning. His lawyer describes the circumstances under which he has committed murder. Reportedly, when he was sixteen and half, in a quarrel in a park in Tehran, he killed a local drug dealer. A year and half later he was taken to the gallows, where he asked for a flute and the impression he mad saved his life for a while. The victim’s family are asking for $200,000, half of which is available to his family. He will be executed tomorrow if nothing happens. Prominent Iranian bloggers, including Khorshid Khanoom, are asking for intervention. The plan is to postpone the execution and to ask everyone to help collect the ransom. The collected money is what his father had been able to sell their house for. His mother is an unemployed nurse. [...]
Pingback by Mideast Youth - Thinking Ahead » Blog Archive » Stop the Execution of Minor — July 17, 2007 @ 3:01 pm