IRAN ELITES: NO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR -18S

a group of Iranian Islamic clerics, legal experts and social activists urged a ban on the death sentence for those under 18 years of age. The group includes leading political figures such as the presidential hopeful, Mehdi Karroubi and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. "All divine faiths and legal schools exempt children from facing persecutions that adults do… so, today international conventions frown on the execution of under-eighteen-year-olds as the harshest of all punishments," the statement said. The group urged lawmakers to revise the relevant legislation.