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Number 71 ● September 11, 2014
Authorities Dispense Death Sentences, Families Grant Reprieves: Executions and Pardons in the Islamic Republic
Raz Zimmt*
The execution of a young Iranian, halted at the last minute, recently triggered a media frenzy in Iran and in the West. The noose had already been placed around Bilal’s neck when the murder victim’s mother approached her son’s murderer in front of thousands of spectators, slapped his face, and granted him a pardon that spared his life. Seven years earlier, Bilal had stabbed Abdollah Hosseinzadeh to death in a street fight in Royan, (the northern district of Mazandaran). In the days leading up to the execution, the victim’s family was heavily pressured to pardon the murderer. Adel Ferdousipour, the host of the popular Iranian TV show “90,” contacted the victim’s father and asked him to spare Bilal’s life. The former soccer star, Ali Daei, made a similar personal appeal to the soccer coach father. Ultimately the father succumbed to the pressure, but his wife firmly refused to spare the killer’s life. Only days before the execution date, as the victim’s father later disclosed in an interview his wife Samereh Alinejad, had a dream in which she saw her dead son asking his younger brother, who had been killed in a motorcycle accident several years earlier, to urge her not to revenge his death, and that he was in a good place. The dream convinced the mother to forgive her son’s murderer and led to the public pardon (iranianuk).
The Islamic law or Sharia prescribes certain punishments for serious crimes according to three main categories: Hudūd, includes punishments for crimes that are considered offenses against God, for which no reprieve is possible; Diyat, concerning violations of individual rights, for which monetary fines can be imposed (diyah); and Qiṣāṣ, refers to offences of bodily injuries and homicide, which oblige retributive punishments. The punishment for premeditated homicide is the death penalty. Accordingly, the Iranian penal code determines that the victim’s legal heir (vali-ye dam) has the discretion to decide whether to demand the death penalty. In the event that the heirs are willing to spare the murderer’s life and forego the death penalty, the offense is commuted to manslaughter and the court is authorized to reduce the sentence to incarceration or a fine.
Recent wave of pardons by families of murder victims
In recent months, the Iranian press has reported a wave of pardons (bakhshesh) granted by victims’ families, saving their relatives’ killers from being put to death. In April 2014, the family of a young man from the city of Bandar Abbas, on the shores of the Persian Gulf, who had been murdered in 2000, granted a pardon to the man’s murderer only minutes before the execution. The murderer had shot the young man whom he had suspected of having an illicit relationship with his daughter, whom the young man wished to marry. The murder fled the scene after the crime and was captured only 11 years later. The murderer’s brother recounted that the victim’s family were relentless in their refusal to pardon the murderer, but when the victim’s mother saw the murderer at the gallows with the noose around his neck, she spared his life. In an interview, the murderer’s brother appealed to other families who had lost their relatives, and urged them to pardon the murderers. He stated that many of the killers had no intention of committing the crime, and allowing them to live gives the murderers an opportunity to tell their stories to others and perhaps prevent similar offenses. After the execution was cancelled, Deputy Attorney General of Bandar Abbas expressed hope that such incidents would encourage more families to pardon their relatives’ murderers (magiran).
Similar cases of pardons at the eleventh hour before a scheduled execution have been reported in other cities in recent months. In the city of Nishapour (in eastern Iran), the family of a 19-year-old murder victim pardoned the young man who stabbed the victim to death. In Bijan (Kurdistan), a family pardoned their son's murderer following the intervention of a Friday prayer Imam, who argued that Islamic law considers forgiveness the greatest moral principle for believers (magiran(.
In the village of Fathabad in north-eastern Iran (Khorasan Razavi province), the parents of a dead 17-year-old pardoned his 22-year-old murderer. The victim's father stated that he did not want other families to experience the same difficult and painful moments as his own family had known (tnews) .
In Arak the life of a man sentenced to death was saved after senior provincial officials, including the governor, the deputy attorney, the Friday prayer Imam and administrators of the central prison intervened and persuaded the victim’s family to pardon the murderer (asreiran). Spokesman of the Judiciary and Attorney General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejhei recently reported that lives of 358 individual who had been sentenced to death in the previous Iranian calendar year (2013-2014) had been saved, following pardons granted to them by their victims’ families
(asreiran).
These and similar incidents create a public climate that encourages victims’ families to pardon the killers of their loved ones. In certain cases, public pressure is put to bear on the families to agree to a pardon. In May 2014, thousands of residents of the city of Ravansar (Kermanshah province) participated in a march designed to persuade the family of Amir Moradi, a young man who had been stabbed to death by a friend during an argument that erupted in 2008, to spare the murderer’s life. Shortly before the scheduled execution, the City Council contacted the family and tried to persuade them to forego the death sentence. The Council also called city residents to meet at the victim’s grave for a similar plea. The city’s merchants, social activists, clerics, and artists participated in the march from the victim’s grave to the family’s home. The family agreed to meet with several representatives, but suspended any decision on the matter (asreiran).
In the responses of citizens to the event in Ravansar, published on Asr-e Iran website, most users expressed support for the initiative of the residents and urged the victim’s family to grant absolution to their son’s murderer. One respondent wrote that a civil gathering designed to plea for forgiveness is better than people gathering to watch the public executions. Several users expressed reservations about the residents’ march arguing that it was inappropriate to put emotional or physical pressure on the victims’ families (asriran).
The Iranian press has also rallied in efforts to encourage this trend. An article published on May 18, 2014 by the hardline newspaper Javan, entitled “Qisas is a right, pardon is sweet,” stated that qisas is a justified punishment for the sake of deterrence, and is the exclusive right of the victim’s family. A pardon is, however, to be preferred over revenge. It is possible to commiserate with families who lost their loved ones and are unable to forgive the murderers, and they should not be forced to grant a parson. But, if they do decide to forgive, this is a worthy act that embodies Islamic virtues of mercy and pity (jamejam).
Residents gather in an appeal to the victim’s family to pardon his killer. Source: shahrvand.
More executions and more public outcry: The government responds
The recent wave of pardons has occurred on the backdrop of a rise in the number of executions in Iran last year, which triggered growing public censure. Iran is second in the world (after China) in its number of executions. According to Iran Human Rights Documentation Center figures, 280 people were executed within less than six months into 2014, 97 of whom were charged for murder (iranhrdc). According to official Iranian statistics, 373 people were executed in 2013, although human rights organizations estimate this number at over 665. The majority of the persons executed were charged with drug-trafficking-related offenses but 150 were charged with homicide-related offenses that allow the victims’ families to waive the death penalty (inanhrdc).
In recent years, Iran’s execution policy has evoked increasing censure by international organizations and by local human rights activists. While expectations for a policy change on this issue have increased since the election of President Hassan Rouhani, the number of executions has actually increased. In response, an avid public debate has developed on this issue in recent months, especially on social networks, accompanied by a growing demand to limit the number of executions to conform with accepted international norms.
In late 2013, several Iranian human rights activities including prominent poet Simin Behbahani, former president of Teheran University Dr. Mahmoud Maleki, and former journalist Mahmoud Nourizad, launched a public campaign conducted mainly on Facebook to abolish the death penalty in Iran. The Facebook page, launched as “Step by Step to Stop Death Penalty,” has attracted over 11,000 supporters and publishes regular updates on executions in Iran (facebook). Following the public events in Ravansar, Dr. Maleki argued that the residents’ initiative reflects a change in Iranian public’s position on death penalty, and expressed the hope that the efforts to abolish the death penalty will ultimately force the government to reexamine its policy. (rooz).
Growing domestic and international criticism has not, as it seems, apparently made a dent in the Iranian government’s death penalty policy. In February 2014, the government closed down the reformist newspaper Aseman after it published an article critical of the qisas penalty. The political science lecturer Prof. Davoud Hermidas Bavand calledas Qisas an“inhuman” act. Following Aseman’s closure, the newspaper’s editor quickly clarified that the statements were the result of a technical error and did not represent the newspaper’s position (mashreqnews). Mohammad Javad Larijani, head of the Iranian Judiciary's Human Rights Council, recently defended his country’s death penalty policy and stressed that almost 80% of the executions are connected to the country’s battle against drug smugglers. Attorney General Ejhei also defended the policy and noted that Iran refuses to allow Western countries to impose their cultural perceptions concerning human rights on other countries (isna).
Nonetheless, Iranian authorities are not blind to the growing public criticism, which has affected senior judicial officials’ willingness to reexamine certain aspects of the death penalty policy. Thus, for example, at the conference of the Judiciary's Human Rights Council, held on May 6 this year, Ejhei called to reexamine the penal policy on drug offenses and consider imposing the death penalty only on the leaders of these networks. The option of having the victims’ family pardon the victim in qisas offenses offer the judiciary a unique opportunity to influence execution of the law in a manner that satisfies the growing demand to reduce the number of executions, and yet remains consistent with Islamic law. In a meeting with the Austrian Foreign Minister, Javad Larijani defined qisas as a “divine ruling,” but stressed that Iranian authorities are acting in numerous channels, including cooperation with civil organizations in persuading family members of victims to award a pardon to convicted murderers (farsnews).
Summary
The surge of pardons by victims’ families, the public pressure exerted on them to spare the lives of offenders sentenced to death, and the growing domestic criticism leveled against the execution policy mark a change in social consensus on capital crimes. This change may reflect, among other things, greater public understanding of the unique circumstances and of socio-economic hardships that promote crime and murder.
Although it seems that the public is currently unable to trigger a reform of the legal system, it has increasingly put pressure to bear on Iranian authorities to reexamine the execution policy. Encouraging pardons by families in the case of a death penalty for murder creates an opportunity for the government to adopt a more tolerant approach that is based on the Islamic virtue of mercy. This allows the Islamic Republic authorities who are somewhat attentive to international and domestic criticism on human rights issues to avoid executions in some cases without adopting a legislative reform, which the authorities consider especially problematic■
* Dr. Raz Zimmt (PhD) is a research fellow at the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
T h e A l l i a n c e C e n t e r f o r I r a n i a n S t u d i e s ( A C I S )
Tel Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv 61390, Tel Aviv P.O.B. 39040, Israel
Email: IranCen@post.tau.ac.il , Phone: +972-3-640-9510
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Iran Pulse No. 71 ● September 11, 2014
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