A young woman pleaded in vain for mercy Monday before being hanged at dawn with four men for drug trafficking in a poor quarter of Tehran, watched by hundreds of people.
Fariba Tajiani-Emamqoli, 30, blindfolded and with her hands tied, implored pardon from the judges but her appeal was ignored and she was hanged from one of five cranes set up in the eastern Khak-e Sefid district.
Executed with her, less than four weeks after their arrest, were Ali Alipour, Ibrahim Qaemshari, Ali-Kazem Aslani and Framan Qaremani-Aazara, all about the same age as their companion.
The whole process took 25 minutes, with the bodies being left for 10 minutes before being taken down.
Though executions are frequent in Iran -- which maintains a strict version of Sharia or Islamic law -- and much criticised by human rights groups, the hanging of a woman is extremely rare.
The district was sealed off hours before the hangings were due to take place, and senior police officers were in attendance. Some 500 people, screaming "death to dealers”, watched from nearby, while other spectators gathered on the roofs of houses.
The five, found guilty of selling "large quantities" of heroin over a number of years, as well as consuming it, were arrested in a police swoop on Khak-e-Sefid on February 23.
The area, popularly known as "The Tumour" because of its lawlessness, was a center for urban migration from the countryside and had become a refuge for drug dealers, car thieves and petty criminals.
The quarter was allegedly responsible for 75 percent of the drugs trade in Tehran, and last month's police action reportedly netted 70 narcotics dealers.
After the round-up Jazireh Street, where Monday's executions took place, was practically razed, hundreds of houses were pulled down and thousands of people were evicted.
Authorities say it will be turned into a park for women.
The February crackdown brought praise from President Mohammad Khatami, who said such actions "should be pursued against corruptors throughout the country in order to root out evil."
Iran is a key route for drugs on their way from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Gulf and Europe, and has become infected by the trade in its turn. According to official figures some two million of Tehran's population of 60 million are addicts, and the authorities have not shrunk from radical measures to combat the problem.
On January 10, the head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi-Shahrudi, announced that 800 drug traffickers were waiting in death row and that amnesties had been rejected.
However Prosecutor General Ayatollah Morteza Moqtadai said earlier this month that the cases would be re-examined.
State radio quoted him as saying that "most of them were condemned for transporting drugs", and not selling.
The same day, an alleged Afghan druglord was hanged in public in northeast Iran, and state media reported that authorities had distributed arms to villagers in 70 regions along the 945-kilometer (587-mile) border with Afghanistan to fight armed bandits and drug smuggling -- TEHRAN (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
