Two underage boys were thoroughly flogged before they were executed on allegations of crimes they reportedly committed as teenagers.
The boys had their parents visit them on Wednesday last week before authorities secretly handed the boys to the hangman the following day.
At the time of the visit, parents were never informed the boys were to be executed the following day, and it came to them as a shock according to Amnesty International.
In what the Amnesty International described as “utter disdain for international law and children’s’ rights,” Iran decided to execute the two Mehdi Sohrabifar and Amin Sedaghat over rape charges following an “unfair” trial.
At the time of their arrest, the boys were 15 and were kept at a juvenile penitentiary in the Southern city of Shiraz.
At the time of their executions, the two Iranian boys had lash marks on their backs, showing they had been flogged hours before they were hanged.
“The Iranian authorities have once again proved that they are sickeningly prepared to put children to death, in flagrant disregard of international law,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director.
“It seems they cruelly kept these two boys in the dark about their death sentences for two years, flogged them in the final moments of their lives, and then carried out their executions in secret,” he added.
The two had been held at a juvenile prison, but were to be transferred to the Adelabad prison in Shiraz Wednesday before they were executed Thursday.
Iran currently leads the world in executing children according to Amnesty International reports.
However, China is the leading executioner in the world, with a reported thousands of people being executed annually.
“We have identified a trend in which Iran’s authorities are carrying out executions of juvenile offenders in secret and without giving advance notice to the families, seemingly in a deliberate attempt to avoid global outrage,” said Luther.