Iran cuts off man’s fingers for stealing, says best way to curb theft

Iranian authorities have cut off the fingers of a man convicted of theft.

The officials said the man was found guilty of 28 cases of theft, defending the amputation as the best way to deter theft despite protests by international human rights organisations.

The Iranian judiciary’s news agency Mizan said the sentence had been carried out on Wednesday in the capital of Mazandaran, Sari.

Iran’s Islamic penal code says theft “on the first occasion” is punishable by the amputation of four fingers of the right hand.

Amnesty International has condemned Iranian authorities for cutting off the fingers of a man convicted of theft.

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The rights group said the amputation, carried out at a prison in the northern province of Mazandaran, was “an abhorrent form of torture”.

In a statement on Thursday, Saleh Higazi, Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said that the premeditated “maiming and mutilation of individuals is not justice”.

“It is a harrowing assault against human dignity. Reforms to Iran’s penal code that would put an end to this outrageous practice are long overdue.”

Iran is an Islamic republic and its legal system is based on a strict reading of Sharia law.

In January 2018 authorities in north-eastern Iran amputated the hand of a 34-year-old man convicted of stealing sheep.

Iranian authorities were widely criticised by rights groups last year for flogging a man who was convicted of consuming alcohol as a teenager more than 10 years earlier.

Amnesty said at the time that Iran had executed nearly 100 juvenile offenders since 1990 – the highest number of any nation.