20th April 2025 - The Iranian authorities are preparing to inflict the cruel and irreversible punishment of finger amputation against three prisoners as early as 11 April, following their torture-tainted convictions in unfair trials, Amnesty International warned. The organization is calling on the international community to urgently press the Iranian authorities to end this spectacle of brutality. All Iranian officials responsible for ordering and/or carrying out these acts of torture must be criminally investigated and prosecuted.
Hadi Rostami, Mehdi Sharfian and Mehdi Shahivand, held in Urumieh Central prison, West Azerbaijan province, were informed by prosecution authorities on 13 March 2025 that their amputation sentences would be carried out as early as 11 April 2025. The authorities amputated the fingers of two brothers in the same prison in October 2024 using a guillotine device, raising alarm that they are prepared to carry out further amputation sentences.
“Amputation constitutes torture, which is a crime under international law and is a flagrant and abhorrent assault on human dignity. We call on the Iranian authorities to immediately halt all plans to carry out these cruel and inhuman sentences and abolish all forms of corporal punishment in law and practice,” said Sara Hashash, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
