Majlis Endorses Bill to Restrict Death Penalty for Drug Crimes

Lawmakers on Sunday approved a bill that essentially restricts the death penalty to drug lords and crime syndicates and punishes small-time offenders with jail time.

The bill was approved with 135 votes in favor and 22 against. Seven lawmakers abstained. The lawmaking body has 290 members.

If signed into law after okayed by the Guardian Council, only those caught with  more than 50 kilograms of traditional narcotics (up from 5 kg) and those carrying over 2 kg of synthetic drugs (up from 2 grams) will be sentenced to death.

Speaking to the parliament news agency ICANA, Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi, a member of the Majlis Judicial and Legal Commission, welcomed the approval of the bill.

“Four decades of war on drugs has yielded very little. Our laws clearly failed to have the desired deterrence effect,” he said. “There is a need for an overhaul and this is it.”

He said the current laws wrongfully target people who, for whatever reason, were forced into the illicit trade.

“Poverty pushes people to do anything to provide for their families. But our laws did not take this into consideration and these people were sentenced to death simply because they were found carrying drugs,” Jahanabadi said.

The lawmaker said the original bill had a wider scope which met with resistance from drug authorities.

“We had to limit the scope of the bill but managed to keep the key points, namely the restriction of the death penalty,” he noted.

According to data released in November, around 5,300 drug dealers are on death row, 90% of whom are first-time offenders and in the 20-30 year age bracket.

“The bill will scrap the death penalty for many now behind bars and facilitate their return to their families. In their cases, life in prison and the prospect of death will not help anyone,” Jahanabadi said.

  Execute Them!

The long-awaited shift away from the death penalty comes at a time when social scientists and human rights activists across continents have increasingly questioned the deterrence effect of the death penalty.

Proponents of capital punishment claim the death sentence discourages would-be offenders from committing crimes. Opponents, drawing on available facts and figures plus the increasing junkie population, have established that that is not necessarily true.

Ali Moayyedi, head of the Iran Drug Control Headquarter, has been a vocal critic of the plan to scrap the death sentence ever since it was brought up last year. In a recent TV program he accused the supporters of “looking out for drug dealers and ignoring the people.”

However, Hassan Norouzi, a spokesmen of the Majlis Legal and Judicial Council, hit back.

“[Critics] only know how to say ‘execute them!” he was quoted by Khabaronline.ir as saying. “Well, that’s fine; but who exactly do they want to execute? Both drug lords and consumers alike?”

Citing numbers reported by Moayyedi himself, Norouzi said the volume of illegal drugs smuggled into the country jumped from 500 tons in 2012 to 555 tons in 2014 and 618 tons in 2015.

“It is crystal clear that the laws in place have had no effect on curbing drug crime,” Norouzi reasoned.

The increased execution rate for drug-related crime has not helped discourage or reduce drug crime, prompting some officials to demand a review of the death penalty for all drug-related crimes minus armed trafficking.

Investigations show most drug peddlers are not the actual smugglers or ringleaders, but are dragged and/or tempted into the crime due to poverty, joblessness and hopelessness.

Officials say the battle against drug addiction and trafficking costs Iran $1 billion annually. Iran lies on the transit corridor between the world’s opium capital (Afghanistan) and crime syndicates in Europe and beyond.