Iran Nobel Winner Seeks End To Juvenile Executions
Shirin Ebadi
November 25, 2008
Eighteen-year-old Behnam Zare's last words on his way to be hanged were: "I want to be alive. I am full of remorse. Is there anyone to save me?"
The tape of his final phone call was replayed to journalists, rights activists, and tearful parents of those on death row in Iran today at a conference to campaign for ending the execution of juvenile offenders.
Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights work in Iran, said Zare was one of at least six juvenile offenders executed by Iran's judiciary since March.
Like the other six, he was held in a detention center until he was deemed old enough to be executed without attracting international criticism, she said.
Zare was arrested when 15 after a fight that ended in the death of a schoolmate. He was hanged in October after he turned 18.
"He called me before being executed. He was so scared and begged for help," she said after replaying Zare's last call at the conference, organized by Ebadi's Association for Defending Human Rights...
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