IRAN HANGS SIX CRIMINALS, EIGHT MORE FACE THE SAME

the Islamic Republic enforces a strict Sharia law according to which punishment for rape, murder, drug smuggling and armed robbery is the death penalty.
But the stiff punishments, which also include lashings for woman 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.
The four convicted murderers were executed inside Tehran´s Qasr prison at dawn on September 16, the Tosea daily said.
The other two, who were executed in public in Ahwaz and Abedeh in southern Iran on September 17, were described as an armed robber, Ali Davud Zahiri, and a drug smuggler, unidentified. The execution of the latter was witnessed by a number of people gathered in Basij square, who expressed satisfaction and called for more stringent measures against drug traffickers, according to Etemad newspaper.
Six members of a gang of men who were found guilty of kidnapping and raping women in the capital would also be publicly executed in Tehran in the next few days, along with a young man condemned for killing of a police officer in a city park and another man convicted of the murder of a security guard in a market.
According to a World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), 250 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of the year. OMCT, on behalf of 23 NGOs called on the EU and its current President, Denmark, to sponsor a censure resolution at the upcoming UN General Assembly to sponsor a censure resolution on Iran at the UN General Assembly.
”Not only has the situation in the country been of particular concern over the last two decades, but a recent spate of grave violations, including public executions, give rise to fears of a further deterioration in this situation, which appears to be gaining momentum,” the OMCT statement said.