This page keeps the memory of 93 people who were executed for a charge that goes back to a time when they were still under 18 years of age. They are called “juvenile offenders”, but most of them grew up in prison over years and were hanged as young adults. All 93 people were executed. The earliest execution in this list took place on 11 Ordibehesht 1388 and the latest on 23 Mehr 1405. The charges attributed to these children are those stated by the sources; listing them does not mean a judgement about their guilt, and many of them spoke of confessions under torture or of taking the blame for someone else's act.
Ages, years and cities
The median age of this group at the time of execution is 21 years. The youngest of them was 15 years old at the time of execution, and based on the ages recorded by the sources, 7 people were still under 18 even at the time of execution; that is, children who were executed as children. The oldest person in this list was 40 years old at the time of execution; the gap between a charge in adolescence and the carrying out of the sentence sometimes lasted years. There are 7 girls and women in this list whose source mentioned that they were female.
The year 1392 with 15 names is the heaviest year in this list, followed by 1393 with 11 names and 1401 with 9 names. On the days 11 Esfand 1392 and 29 Mordad 1401, 4 people from this group were executed on each day, and on 28 Farvardin 1393 three people. Bandar Abbas with 12 names is the most frequent city, followed by Karaj with 11, Zahedan with 10, Shiraz with 7 and Kermanshah with 5 names. Hormozgan province with 14 names is at the top of the provinces.
Some lives
Bahram Ahmadi was a final-year student of mathematics and physics in Sanandaj, the ninth and last child of a working-class family. The source calls him “a calm, kind and studious boy.” In prison he wished to go to a home for the elderly and visit grandfathers and grandmothers whose children had abandoned them. He was secretly executed on 7 Dey 1391, at the age of 20, in Ghezel Hesar Prison, and his family heard the news from their city's member of parliament.
Delara Darabi had painted since the age of ten and was a pre-university student. Her sentence was carried out on 11 Ordibehesht 1388 in Rasht, without her lawyer and family being informed; even though, according to the source, “the head of the judiciary had issued an order to halt the sentence for 2 months.” Abolfazl Chezani Sharahi, the son of a poor family from the outskirts of Qom who worked in a sohan (Qom brittle) workshop, was executed on 6 Tir 1397. Those close to him said: “Execution for a 14-year-old child is far from humanity.”
Seyedeh Fatemeh Salbehi had been forced into marriage at the age of 15 and, according to the source, “was only 17 years old at the time of the killing”; she was executed at the age of 23 in Shiraz. Zeinab Sekaanvand Lokran had also been married off at the age of 15; the source says she “had taken the blame for this killing in place of someone else and never thought she would be caught in such a situation.” Alireza Tajiki, a teenager who had held a provincial ranking in cycling, was executed at the age of 21 in Shiraz, and his family said: “We have been dead for 6 years, only the earth is not on top of us!”
About this list
The list of executed juvenile offenders is not complete. The real number is higher, because the age of the accused is not stated in many execution reports, and the names of many were never published. We include a person on this page only when a source has said that they were under 18 at the time of the charge. The largest share of these 93 names comes from the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with 79 cases; followed by the Iran Human Rights Society with 14, Haalvsh with 11, HRANA with 10 and the Kurdistan Human Rights Network with 7 cases. Every name has at least one source, and some only one. For 64 people a description of their life is available. If you knew one of these children and young people, share your memory or correction with us.