If you look at the left hand side of this page and scroll down you will find my Flickr badge which, if you click, will take you to my pictures on Flickr. When I upload some pictures onto my site, I tend to put them into 'sets' for ease of location and viewing. Once I do this, I then send emails to people so they can bore people all over the world with my pictures of canals, boats and beer.
However, I came across a set that gave me a jolt. The set is of pictures by Delara Darabi who, at the time of writing this, is a 20 year-old woman sitting on death row in Iran, and who had been 'convicted' of a capital crime at the age of 16 and condemned to death. At the time of witing this, Iran has another 31 young people who had been convicted while still a 'child' of a capital offence.
In Delara's case, she was convinced by her then boyfriend to confess to murder committed during a burglary. He convinced her that she could not be executed because of her age, but this turned out not to be the case. She also was given a three-year jail sentence, 50 lashes for robbery and 20 lashes for an 'illicit relationship'. All of this Delara denies and pleads her innocence.
Not knowing the actual facts of the case for certain, I can't comment, but the UN states that a child is someone who is under the age of 18 at the time of the offence, and as a child, is not expected to fully understand the consequences of their actions and thereby be put to death. Iran (and the US) have signed up to this Covenant, but the executions continue.
Obviously, Delara doesn't have her own page on flickr, but a supporter does, and has loaded some of her pictures, along with a personal statement from Delara, onto his page.
You can see those pictures here.
You can read more about Delara and the others presently sitting on death row in Iraq on the Stop Child Execution website; and on that website, you can sign a petition.
Delara also has, courtesy of Amnesty International, a MySpace page where you can find further information.
Whatever the circumstances and offences, it is, fo me, an offence against civilisation that there are countries and systems that feel comfortable putting children to death.
3 comments:
Thank you for this blog and the link to amnesty and the rest. It is important to be reminded of individuals amongst all the troubles in the world. it does make you want to actually do something rather than just read about it.
You can see Delara's paintings at: http://savedelara.com/Delara_Paintings.html
They are amazing. Also, on that site, which is the official site of the campaign to save Delara (hence the name, SaveDelara.com!), I found a whole bunch of information on this girl. It is really sad. I hope they succeed in saving her life.
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