FIVE TO HANG AT DAWN IN IRAN

the latest executions are scheduled to take place in different districts of the Iranian capital, one for each hanging. The Jam-e-Jam newspaper said the convicts are members of a gang dubbed the "black vultures" by police.
It said their death sentences were confirmed on September 25 by Tehran´s court of appeal, and quoted police as saying they had received a number of phone calls from grateful women who had fallen prey to the gang.
The crimes of murder, armed robbery, rape, blasphemy and trafficking more than five kilograms of opium all carry the death penalty in Iran, where executions, many of them in public, are frequent.
Two of last week’s executions were carried out in public view in Ahwaz and Abedeh in southern Iran.
Public hangings and other stiff punishments, including lashings for women who fail to adhere to the strict Islamic dress code in public, have been criticised by the allies of moderate President Mohammad Khatami. They say it sends a poor image of Iran and Islam to the outside world.
Yesterday Hands Off Cain demonstrated in front of the UN Rome headquarters to urge the Italian government to present a censure resolution of human rights violations in Iran at the current UN General Assembly in New York.
HOC also called on the United Nations to send its observers back into Iran. The human rights situation seems to be rapidly deteriorating since the UN Human Rights Commission failed to approve a resolution condemning violations in Iran for the first time since the installation of the present regime in 1979. As a result of this failure, UN monitorship in Iran has been suspended.