London, MEFD – According to sources inside Iran, alleged juvenile offender Fatemeh Salbehi, who was arrested when she was 17 years old for the murder of her husband, was executed this morning at the age of 23 in Adel Abad prison in the city of Shiraz in southern Iran. Fatemeh Salbehi married at the age of 16 to a man who was twice her age and who she had never met before their marriage. When the authorities found the body of her husband in March 2009 at their house, she was arrested and charged with his murder while she did not have access to her lawyer. She was interrogated and despite the many uncertainties in her case, she was ultimately sentenced to death. Fatemeh Salbehi’s former lawyer has emphasised that although she confessed under pressure during the preliminary investigation, she did not maintain her confession to murder in court. This makes us believe that Fatemeh Salbehi confessed to murder under duress. Iran is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), of which Article 37 clearly states that capital punishment shall not be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age, and yet 72 juvenile offenders are believed to have been executed between 2005 and 2014 and at least 160 juvenile offenders are awaiting their execution on death row. “The execution of Fatemeh Salbehi is yet another breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the Iranian regime and it clearly demonstrates that the authorities are apathetic in upholding the international human rights treaties” said Mosa Zahed, executive director at Middle East Forum for Development. Middle East Forum for Development firmly condemns the Iranian authorities for executing Fatemeh Salbehi and urges them to immediately halt all executions of persons on death row who are sentenced to death for offences alleged to have been committed when they were below eighteen years of age.