Dramatic UN appeal to Iran over its medieval methods of punishing prisoners. Amputation, flogging and stoning between sentences.
The United Nations has called on Iran to revoke the amputation sentences of eight detainees and called on Tehran to abolish all corporal punishment.
The seven men are being held in central Tehran, according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ravina Samdasani.
"We are deeply concerned about the impending imminent amputation of the eight men convicted of burglary and call on the Iranian authorities to overturn the execution," he said in a statement issued in Geneva.
"We also urge Iran to urgently review the criminal sanctions it imposes in order to abolish all forms of corporal punishment, such as mutilation, flogging and stoning," he added.
According to the UN, the eight men have been sentenced to amputation of the four fingers of their right hand and may be transferred to Evin Prison, where a special guillotine was recently placed. Recently, this machine was used to amputate another man's fingers.
Iranian civil society organizations say at least 237 people have been sentenced to mutilation in the past 20 years. The sentences were carried out in at least 129 cases, according to Samdasani.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Iran is a party, prohibits torture, including inhumane punishments.
According to the latest report by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Iran has executed more than 100 people since the beginning of the year by March 20, continuing a worrying upward trend. In 2020, 260 people were executed and 310 in 2021, including 14 women. Executions are usually carried out by hanging.
