Teheran (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Fifteen hangings in less than a week: “justice” returns to Iran and saves no-one, even those were minors when they committed the crime.   Yesterday authorities in Evin – Tehran’s infamous prison for political detainees – carried out the death penalty on a 28 year woman Zeinab Nazarzadeh, Hamid, 30 year old Safarali Nasiri and Hasanali.

The night before her hanging of Zeinab Nazarzadeh –accused of killing her husband – her family had launched a desperate appeal for the suspension of the death sentence, but it went unheard: the women who had spent the last two months of her life in prison was hung at dawn. Her mother died two months ago due to pressures her daughter experienced; rapes, physical and mental abuse are a common praxis in Iran’s prisons.

Since the beginning of May 11 other executions have been carried out in Tehran, Isfahan, Rasht, Ardabil and Taybad, north east Khorasan. Last Saturday in Taybad, closet o the border with Afghanistan, six drug traffickers were hung. A seventh man, Abdolbaret Noorzehi, was put to death in Khash, he was charged with murder.

The recent hanging of Delara Darabi, condemned to death for murdering a relative has provoked widespread condemnation; the murder took place in 2003 when she was only 17.  Initially Delara, who went on to become famous for the art she produced while in prison, had taken full responsibility for the murder to save her boyfriend from hanging.  A subsequent retraction was not taken into consideration by Iranian authorities, who confirmed her death sentence which was carried out May 1st last.

These latest executions bring to 85 the number of people put to death by the Iranian regime, which punishes with death drug traffickers, assassins and political dissidents.  In 2008 246 death sentences were carried out, a hundred less compared to 2007 in which that number totalled 335.  Tehran maintains that the use of capital punishment is an “effective tool” in improving security in society.