PUBLIC EXECUTIONS IN IRAN REACH HORROR LEVELS

Iran has carried out a total of 40 executions since the beginning of 2014, with at least 33 carried out in the past week alone.

Amnesty International has revealed in the week since 9th January 2014 more officially acknowledged executions were carried out in Iran than during the whole month of January 2013.

Public executions in Iran are usually carried out using cranes which lift the condemned person by a noose around the neck in front of a crowd of spectators.

Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Hadj Sahraoui has described the spike in the number of executions carried out so far this month in Iran as alarming.

He said: "The Iranian authorities attempts to change their international image are meaningless if at the same time executions continue to increase.The death penalty is a violation of every human beings right to life and is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. The Iranian authorities must urgently take steps to abolish the death penalty, which has been shown again and again not to have any special deterrent effect on crime."

Amnesty International has called on the Iranian authorities to immediately adopt an official moratorium on all executions and commute all death sentences, at the same time as ending all secrecy surrounding their use of the death penalty.

Most of those executed in Iran had been convicted of alleged drug-related offences.

Under international standards, non-lethal crimes such as drugs offences do not meet the threshold of most serious crimes to which the death penalty must be restricted