UNITED NATIONS, Dec 13: A United Nations rights expert has called on the Iranian government not to carry out the death penalty against Rostam Tajik, a 20-year-old Afghan national who was only 16 when he is alleged to have committed murder.

“Executing a juvenile offender is not the way to mark Dec 10, which is International Human Rights Day,” Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions of the UN Commission on Human Rights, said last week.

“At a time when virtually every other country in the world has firmly and clearly renounced the execution of people for crimes they committed as children, the Iranian approach is particularly unacceptable,” he added.