Watchdog

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...

Read more of this Reuters story here.

Afghan authorities have arrested 10 Taliban insurgents accused of throwing acid in the faces of schoolgirls in southern Afghanistan, an official has said.

President Hamid Karzai ordered the arrest of the culprits and said they would be executed in public after the attack on eight schoolgirls and four female teachers in the southern city of Kandahar this month.

General Mohammad Daud Daud, the deputy interior minister tasked to deal with the incident, said authorities had arrested 10 men in recent days in connection to the attack.

"The attack was the work of the Taliban, and we have not finalized our investigation," Daud told reporters in Kandahar.

The Taliban barred girls from education while they were in power from 1996 until U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the hard-line Islamist movement in 2001, but the militants denied any involvement in the acid attack.

Violence has surged to its worst level this year in Afghanistan since the Taliban's removal. The ongoing insecurity, as well as attacks targeting schools and teachers, have stopped tens of thousands of Afghan students from attending classes.

(by Reuters)