A man was hanged in public in the south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchistan, state media reported. The man, identified as Naeim Moulai, was hanged on Wednesday in the city of Zabol, the semi-official daily Jomhouri Islami wrote on Thursday.He was accused of drug trafficking.


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Authorities hanged a man in central Iran, state media reported on Monday.The unnamed man was hanged in the city of Arak, the official state daily Iran wrote.He was accused of murder.


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Iranian authorities hanged a woman in public in the north-western province of East Azerbaijan, state media reported on Sunday.The unnamed woman was hanged in public in the provincial capital Tabriz, the daily Tehran-e Emrouz wrote. The report put her age at 29. She was accused of murder and conspiring to kill.Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on bogus charges such as armed robbery, drug smuggling, and murder.In May 2006, at least 100,000 Azeris rallied in Tabriz against the publication of an insulting cartoon in the official daily Iran. The city has since been prone to anti-government demonstrations and full-scale riots.


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Iranian authorities hanged a man in public in the southern province of Fars, state media reported on Saturday.The man, identified as 22-year-old Navid Parham, was hanged in public in the provincial capital Shiraz, the semi-official daily Kayhan wrote.He was accused of murder and robbery.


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Three men were hanged in public on Saturday, in the north-western Iranian province of East Azerbaijan, state media reported.The unnamed men were hanged in public in the provincial capital Tabriz, the government-owned news agency Fars said.They were accused of murder.


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Canada called upon Iran on Tuesday to overturn death sentence of Sina Paymard. The Honorable Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, made an urgent appeal today to Iranian authorities to overturn the death sentence of Sina Paymard. “Canada calls upon the Iranian government to stay the execution sentencegiven to Sina Paymard for a crime he was convicted of committing while aminor. “The Government of Iran must live up to its commitments and obligations under international law as well as its own domestic law. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Both of these international binding agreements clearly prohibit the execution of minors or people who have been convicted of crimes committed while they were minors. “The execution of minors is a subject of the utmost concern for Canada,and we urge Iranian authorities to commute the death sentence in this case.”


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Reuters reported that Iran has stayed the execution of a teenage boy convicted of murder for 10 days, Iran's Students News Agency ISNA quoted his lawyer as saying on Wednesday.Sina Paymard, an 18-year-old boy convicted of killing a drug dealer at the age of 16, was scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, according to his lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.Amnesty International had made an urgent appeal against the planned execution, saying that it would be violation of international law if carried out."The lawyer of Sina Paymard ... said her client's execution was stopped for the second time for 10 days," ISNA reported. Iran has one of the highest rates of execution in the world, according to Amnesty. Since the beginning of 2007, at least 124 people have been put to death.


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According to Associated France Press a top Iranian official on Sunday defended the use of execution by stoning after a sentence was carried out on a man accused of adaultry, saying the punishment was legal and in line with Iran's rights commitments. Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the Iranian judiciary's human rights committee, said the judiciary supported the principle of stoning after confirmation last week of the execution sparked international condemnation. "Stoning is based on Islamic sharia law and it is not contrary to any of our international obligations," Larijani was quoted as saying by state television's website. "We have signed four important treaties on human rights. None of them has any opposition to stoning. "But since Westerners have their own interpretations of the articles and the contents of these documents, they oppose stoning," said Larijani, the brother of Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani. A stoning sentence involves members of the public hurling rocks at the convict who is buried up to his waist in the ground. Larijani, who also advises the judiciary on international affairs, stressed that the Iranian authorities took "meticulous" care before issuing any stoning verdict. Western human rights groups have said that other stonings have taken place in Iran since 2002, but the judiciary never confirmed these. Kiani was arrested 11 years ago while living with Mokarrameh Ebrahimi when both were reportedly married to others. Ebrahimi has also been sentenced to death by stoning, but the carrying out of her verdict has been halted.


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Reuters reported: Iranian police will intensify a crackdown on women flouting Islamic dress code, a police official told a newspaper on Sunday, in the first reinforcement of regular summertime campaigns. Such crackdowns have become a regular feature of Iranian life, but it is the first time police have pledged to toughen up measures that began in April.A human rights group on Saturday criticized Iran for abuses like police crackdowns on violations of the Islamic dress code. It said some 488 men and women were detained during the first days of the crackdown."From Mordad (the Iranian month starting on July 23) police numbers will double to confront such immoral behaviour," the Farhang-e Ashti daily quoted Tehran police Chief Ahmad Reza Radan as saying.Under Islamic sharia law, imposed after Iran's 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures and protect their modesty. Violators can receive lashes, fines or imprisonment.Many young women, particularly in wealthier urban areas, challenge the limitations by wearing calf-length Capri pants, tight-fitting, thigh-length coats in bright colors and scarves pushed back to expose plenty of hair.The Islamic dress code is less commonly challenged in poor suburbs and rural areas.Radan said those women who resisted the guidance of police would appear before the courts. "First, those who breach the dress code will be warned by the police ... But if they continue their ignorance ... they will be sent to courts," the police chief said.Iran has repeatedly rejected criticism by rights groups over such crackdowns, saying the country's efforts were aimed at "fighting morally corrupt people”.