Amnesty international says the international community must use all diplomatic means available to stop the Iranian authorities from amputating the fingers of eight men convicted of theft.
“Amputating prisoners’ fingers is a form of torture, and is yet another shocking reminder of the shameless inhumanity of the criminal justice system in Iran, which legalizes torture, a crime under international law,” Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s deputy regional rirector for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement released on June 10.
“Carrying out such heinous punishments is not justice -- it is an abhorrent assault on human dignity,” Eltahawy said, while calling on the Iranian authorities to immediately quash the convictions and amputation sentences of the eight men and grant them fair retrials.
All eight men are currently being held at the Greater Tehran Penitentiary.
Amnesty International said at least three of them were convicted based on torture-tainted “confessions” following “grossly unfair” trials.
The London-based rights group said Iranian authorities have informed the men that they will be transferred to a prison with a guillotine machine in the coming days to implement their sentences.
Two other human rights groups, the DC-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABC) and the France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), have also warned that the eight men are at imminent risk of having their fingers amputated.
Under Islamic law enforced in Iran, repeat offenders face amputation of their fingers for theft. The impelention of amputation sentences, however, has been rare in the past 40 years.
ABC says it has collected reports on at least 356 sentences of amputation issued since the 1979 revolution, adding that the real number is believed to be much higher.