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Iran -She was forced to marry at 16, kills husband ( Executed at 23 )

NCRI-The Iranian regime's judiciary has this week once again put on display its "brazen contempt for the human rights of children," Amnesty International said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Reports have emerged of a second execution of a juvenile offender in Iran in just a few days," Amnesty International said, "which reveal the full horror of the country’s deeply flawed juvenile justice system."

"Fatemeh Salbehi, a 23-year-old woman, was hanged yesterday for a crime she allegedly committed when she was 17, only a few days after another juvenile offender, Samad Zahabi, was hanged for a crime he also committed at 17."

"Fatemeh Salbehi was hanged in Shiraz’s prison in Fars Province despite Iran being bound by an absolute international legal ban on juvenile executions, and severe flaws in her trial and appeal. She had been sentenced to death in May 2010 for the murder of her 30-year-old husband, Hamed Sadeghi, whom she had been forced to marry at the age of 16."

"An expert opinion from the State Medicine Organization provided at the trial had found she had had severe depression and suicidal thoughts around the time of her husband’s death. However the death sentence was upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court later that year."

Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, said: “The use of the death penalty is cruel, and inhumane and degrading in any circumstances, but it is utterly sickening when meted out as a punishment for a crime committed by a person who was under 18 years of age, and after legal proceedings that make a mockery of juvenile justice.”

“With these executions the Iranian judiciary has yet again put on display its brazen contempt for the human rights of children, including their right to life. There are simply no words to adequately condemn Iran’s continued use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders,” Mr. Boumedouha said.

The statement by Amnesty International added: "In another appalling case eight days ago, another juvenile offender Samad Zahabi was secretly hanged in Kermanshah’s Dizel Abad Prison in Kermanshah province for shooting a fellow shepherd during a row over who should graze their sheep."

"This execution was also carried out without a 48 hour notice period being given to Zahabi's lawyer, as is required by law. Horrifically his family said they only learned of his fate after his mother visited the prison on 5 October 2015."

"Samad Zahabi had been sentenced to death by the Provincial Criminal Court of Kermanshah Province in March 2013, even though he had said both during the investigations and at the trial that the shooting was unintentional and in self-defence, and resulted from a fight that he was drawn into against his will."

Mr. Boumedouha added: “The Iranian authorities should be under no illusion that they can avoid international scrutiny until they adopt a categorical rule banning the use of the death penalty on any offender under 18 years of age.”

Iran's regime is scheduled to be reviewed by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in January 2016. The Committee of the Right of the Child oversees the implementation of the CRC, which Iran ratified in July 1994.

"As a state party to the CRC, Iran has pledged to ensure that all persons under 18 years of age are treated as children and never subjected to the same punishments as adults. However, the age of adult criminal responsibility remains nine lunar years for girls and 15 lunar years for boys," Amnesty said.

"Between 2005 and 2015, Amnesty International has received reports of least 75 executions of juvenile offenders, including at least three juvenile offenders in 2015. More than 160 juvenile offenders are believed to be currently on death row in prisons across the country."

Iran Sentences Poets, Filmmaker To Prison, Lashings

Iran's revolutionary court has sentenced two poets and a filmmaker to a total of 26 1/2 years in prison and 421 lashes.

Poets Fatemeh Ekhtesari and Mehdi Musavi were sentenced to prison terms of 11 1/2 years and nine years after being convicted of charges that include "insulting sanctities."

Their lawyer, Amir Raeisian, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that the charges were brought against the two based on their poetry.

"None of the poems that were referred to in court include insulting terms, more importantly none of them were related to sanctities. Yet this is the court's interpretation," Raeisian said on October 13.

Ekhtesari and Musavi were also each sentenced to receive 99 lashes for "kissing [the cheeks] and shaking hands with unrelated members [of the opposite sex.]" Shaking hands in public with unrelated members of the opposite sex is forbidden in the Islamic republic.

Writing on social media, Musavi called the charges against him and Ektesari a "joke."

"I hope one day there will be such justice in this country that no one will be sentenced to heavy jail term for writing a poem and being a freedom lover," Musavi wrote on Instagram.

Meanwhile, award-winning filmmaker Keywan Karimi was sentenced to six years in prison and 223 lashes, the Iranian opposition website Kalame reported on October 12.

The report did not include the reason for the lashing sentence against Karimi.

In an interview with the Associated Press published on October 14, Karimi said the prison sentence was handed down against him on the charge of "insulting sanctities."

"I don't know what happened that I should go to jail for six years," Karimi said.

"I speak about the government, I speak about society, I speak about [graffiti], I speak about a laborer," he added.

Ekhtesari, Musavi, and Karimi have said they will appeal against the sentences.

Ekhtesari and Musavi were released on bail in 2013 after being detained and interrogated for more than a month by the intelligence branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The heavy sentences come even as a group of Iranian rights advocates and activists expressed the hope that the nuclear agreement reached between Iran and world powers in July would ultimately strengthen Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who has promised to give Iranians more freedom.

The cases, however, appear to highlight the determination by Iranian hard-liners who control key institutions, including the judiciary, to resist any attempt to liberalize the political atmosphere and send a warning to dissenters.

In recent weeks, several other activists and artists have been sentenced to heavy prison terms, including writer and television producer Mostafa Azizi and cartoonist Atena Farghadani.

Amnesty International reported on October 9 that Farghadani, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence, was recently forced to undergo a "pregnancy and virginity test" for shaking hands with her lawyer.

Meanwhile, the fate of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who was put on trail on espionage charges in Iran earlier this year, remains unclear.

Judiciary spokesman Mohsen Ejei said on October 9 that a verdict had been reached in Rezaian's trial but did not provide details.

The Washington Post and Rezaian's family have rejected the espionage charges against him as absurd.

Rezaian, a dual Iranian-American citizen, has been in detention in Tehran for more than a year.

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Police Destroy 300 Tons of Marijuana in Northern Mexico

MEXICO CITY – The Federal Police found and destroyed 300 tons of marijuana in Balleza, a city in the northern state of Chihuahua, the Mexican National Security Commission said.

“The plantations were spread out over a surface of approximately 94,629 sq. meters (23 acres), with a density of seven plants per square meter. The approximate weight of the 662,000 plants reached 300,000 kilos,” the commission said in a statement.

Federal Police officers conducted surveillance flights around Balleza after obtaining intelligence about marijuana plantations in the area.

Officers spotted eight plots of land planted with marijuana, the commission said.

Ground units confirmed the existence of the illegal plantations and the marijuana plants “were pulled up by the roots so they could later be incinerated,” the National Security Commission said.

Federal prosecutors oversaw the marijuana plants’ destruction and are investigating the illegal plantations.

Politician Gunned Down in Southern Mexico

MEXICO CITY – An Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, member of the city council in the Mexican Pacific resort city of Acapulco was gunned down this weekend, state prosecutors said.

Jesus de la O Gallardo was murdered on Saturday in the town of Tres Palos, the Guerrero Attorney General’s Office said.

“According to the report by investigators, the councilman was in the town of Tres Palos around 3:00 p.m. (on Saturday) when he was attacked by unidentified individuals carrying firearms,” the AG’s office said in a statement.

Guerrero Attorney General Miguel Angel Godinez went to the crime scene to personally oversee the investigation, the AG’s office said.

Acapulco, one of Mexico’s leading tourist destinations, has been plagued by a wave of drug-related violence that has claimed the lives of dozens of people.