24.07.2008

The European Union, which has just reaffirmed to Iran its opposition to capital punishment under any circumstances, is deeply concerned by the sentencing of eight Iranian women and one Iranian man to stoning and by the risk of their imminent execution.

It recalls that the Islamic Republic of Iran pledged to introduce a moratorium on stoning.

The European Union urges Iran to abide by its commitments and international human rights standards.

The European Union calls on the Iranian government and parliament to abolish, in law and in practice, recourse to cruel and degrading punishment and in particular the use of stoning as a method of execution, in accordance with the latest resolution concerning  the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2007.

The European Union urges Iran to put an immediate stop to these executions and to commute the death sentences by stoning that have just been passed.

The Candidate Countries Turkey, Croatia* and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia*, the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and  Montenegro, and the EFTA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, members of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine and  the Republic of Moldova align themselves with this declaration.

* Croatia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.