IRAN:An Amnesty International report has called on Iran to halt its practice of executing children and those whose crimes were committed before the age of 18.
The human rights organisation said 71 child offenders face the death penalty, though the real figure could be much higher.
Of the 24 executed since 1990, 11 were children at the time of their execution. Others are held in prison until their 18th birthday before being hanged, it said.
The organisation said that Iran has executed more child offenders than any other country since 1990, and is one of the only countries to have done so in the past few years. This month Human Rights Watch reported that Iran had executed at least 17 juvenile offenders since the beginning of 2004 - eight times more than any other country in the world.
Critics of the country have been concerned that its institutions have become increasingly hardline since the election of ultra-conservative President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in 2005.
Iran ranks 96th out of 177 countries in the 2006 United Nations Human Development Index, which measures "wellbeing" on a wealth of factors including Gross Domestic Product, life expectancy, literacy and gender equality. Its nearest neighbours are Belize (95th) and Georgia (97th). This is a slip from 90th in 2002. The country's supreme court and the four-member High Council of the Judiciary supervise the enforcement of all laws and establish judicial and legal policies. Lower courts include a special clerical court, a revolutionary court and a special administrative court.
With an estimated population of 71.4 million, Iran is the most populous country in the region. About 16.5 million people are believed to live under the relative poverty line. - (PA)