Twitter rumours Friday morning would have it that 22 year-old Delara Darabi’s death sentence was carried out today – by hanging. There’s been little evidence to corroborate the news, except (at 11:45 Norwegian time) these tweets – among several others:
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She was originally scheduled to be hanged on 20 April, but the execution was postponed for another two months, as mentioned in an earlier post.
While writing the post, I checked Wikipedia for more facts, which turned out to be a bit of a revelation:
Delara Darabi [name in Persian lettering omitted] born September 29, 1986, died May 1, 2009, was an Iranian girl at the risk of imminent execution for a murder which took place when she was 17 years old. She denied committing the crime. Iran is a state party to international treaties that expressly prohibit the use of the death penalty for crimes committed by those under the age of 18.
More on Delara’s alleged crime from same Wikipedia article:
According to Delara the murder of her father’s female cousin was committed by the 19 year old boyfriend, with whom she was in love. Delara Darabi initially confessed to the murder, but soon retracted her confession. She claims that Amir Hossein asked her to admit responsibility for the murder to protect him from execution, believing that as she was under the age of 18, she could not be sentenced to death.
Delara Darabi was sentenced to death by a lower court in the northern city of Rasht. The sentence has been upheld by the Supreme Court. She maintained her innocence, and claimed that she was under the influence of sedatives during the burglary. At this stage the Head of the Judiciary had the power to order a stay of execution and a review of the case. Amir Hossein has reportedly received a prison sentence of 10 years for his involvement in the crime.[1][2][3]
If this holds true: Rest in peace, Delara.
Update: Several websites seem to support the hitherto unsubstantiated rumours:
- Iran Executes Woman Convicted Of Crime As A Minor – Radio Free Europe
- Breaking News: Delara Darabi executed in Iran – Amnesty International
- Iran hangs young woman for teenage crime she denied – Iran Focus
- Delara (23) ble hengt i morges – VG Nett (in Norwegian)
- THE MINOR OFFENDER DELARA DARABI WAS HANGED THIS MORNING – Iran Human Rights
- Amnesty outraged at Iran execution – The Jerusalem Post
- Mrs. Rajavi calls on international community to condemn execution of Delara Darabi – National Council of Resistance of Iran
- Iran: Outrage at execution of child offender Delara Darabi – Amnesty UK
- Juvenile offender executed in Iran – Washington TV
- Hengt uten at advokaten visste det – tv2nyhetene.no (in Norwegian)
- Iran henretter kvindelig kunstner – politiken.dk (in Danish)
- Delara (23) hengt i Iran – db.no/NTB (in Norwegian)
- Delara Darabi: a message hanging from a crane – Iranian.com
- Delara Darabi was executed – Iranian.com
- Amnesty upprörs av iransk avrättning – svd.se (in Swedish)
- Iransk avrättning fördöms av Amnesty – dn.se (in Swedish)
Denne posten er også publisert på norsk.
I also recommend Niluccio’s blog post @ Amnesty UK: Delara Darabi’s death: shocking news.
Added on Thursday 7 May, nearly a week later:
Photo: The young Iranian woman Delara Darabi (22), allegedly executed Friday morning (myspace.com/helpdelara).
Thanks for adding Breaking Tweets to your quoteurl. I’ve been keeping a close eye on this for the last few hours, and for many reasons it does sadly seem to be true. If so, RIP Delara.
Thank you for conveying reliable sources on the matter, Craig.
Have to say I’m still in shock, as I really thought we had another seven weeks to move Iranian authorities in the right direction.
It would appear not…
Thanks again.
i wanna to close my eyes and die i donot want to see these crimes
I don’t think any of us do, farnoosh.
From what I hear, some 150 under-aged Iranians are facing the same outcome — unaware of exactly when. Which is nothing short of intolerable.
This story is a shame but unfortunately nothing new for Iran or the greater Middle East. I just wrote an article about this recently:
Death sentences for juveniles, real estate brokers and pigs: just another week in the Middle East
Agreed, ronmossad. Cold-bloodedly murdering children is an abomination, be it in Iran or in the Gaza strip, and I’m confident that, since you’re not in favour or the former, you don’t support the latter, as I’m full aware that many Israelis do not condone of the IDF’s conduct throughout last winter’s campaign, for instance.
It’s time we make the responsible officials accountable for their actions, but today, as two Iranian boys may already have met their maker (their hanging was scheduled to take place this morning, but no news have reached the outside world as of yet), we can only pray that their lives have been spared, in the nick of time.
Jarle – those are two completely different things. I invite you to read any several of my blog entries on the topic. You can start with this one – which deals with several of the myths that are thrown around about Israel.
I can’t honestly say that I envy you, having to live in constant fear of suicide bombers suddenly appearing in your streets, ronmossad. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like.
Even so, I acknowledge the fact that Palestinian terrorist attacks, which I do not support, do not come unprovoked, as the now perpetual spiral was initiated by Israeli expansion beyond the 1949 Armistice Agreements:
As I see it, both parties have a lot to answer for, but failing to realise that both need to comply with theU.N. Partition Plan for Palestine is destined to increase the level of hostilities even further.
Certainly, there’s proof of violations on both sides — aplenty. However, in either case, I never look to either party in search of the true version.
I say this in the hope that some day you will all achieve peace, mutual respect and prosperity.
That said, this blog post was on a different subject altogether.
[...] confessed to this crime only to protect her boyfriend, both believing she would not be convicted because at 17 she would have been under age. WHY did [...]