On December 3, 2012, a firing squad executed in Sana'a Hind al- Barti a young woman convicted of murder whose birth certificate indicated as just 15 years old at the time of the alleged crime . Human rights organizations , including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch , had asked President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi for an immediate end to this practice.
" President Hadi should break with the Yemen past, based on arbitrary justice and violence imposed by the state, cancelling the execution orders, already signed, of three young people ," stated Priyanka Motaparthy, researcher for children's rights at Human Rights Watch, in March 2013, adding that " putting an end to executions of minors is a clear and simple way for the Yemen government to show how it honours its commitments on human rights. "
The President has chosen to reform the Yemen judicial system ensuring that all juvenile offenders are properly identified and prosecuted in accordance with the law. By a joint statement , UNICEF and the European Union delegation in Yemen "have expressed appreciation , on the occasion of the World and European Day against the Death Penalty, for the recent efforts by the Yemeni authorities to put an end to the death penalty for juvenile offenders in their Country".
Also, was welcomed " in particular , the introduction, by the Ministry of Justice, of a Forensic Specialist Committee aimed at reviewing all the cases where there is doubt about the age of the alleged offender . We are also encouraged by the recent decision taken by the President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi to ask the Supreme Judicial Council to reopen three capital cases regarding juvenile offenders". (source: Hands off Cain
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