Amid the alarming surge in executions by Iran comes the news that every man in one village has apparently been executed on drug charges.
Shahindokht Molaverdi, the cabinet member for women and family affairs, made the admission while urging the government to provide increased aid for convicts' families.
"We have a village in Sistan and Baluchestan [province] where every single man has been executed," she was quoted by Iran's Mehr news agency, in comments picked up and translated into English by the U.K.'s Independent. "Today their children are potential drug traffickers; either because they will seek revenge for the deaths of their fathers or because they will need to financially provide for their families, as a result of lack of support by the government."
Courageous family members of death row drug convicts have recently held protests outside the Iranian prisons where their loved ones await execution, insisting that they had received fixed trials and calling for an independent judicial review of the cases.
(Photo Courtesy of IranHR.net)
