How Many Kilometres Lie Between Life and Execution? S. Rouzbeh 2026-10-06 Marking 10 October, the World Day Against the Death Penalty, this article looks at the right to life from a different angle: the geographical distance between two sides of a border. Using the Iran–Turkey border as an example, it asks why a political line on a map can still determine how far a person’s life is protected. On the occasion of 10 October, the World Day Against the Death Penalty S. Rouzbeh – In north-western Iran, an official border crossing connects Razi, in West Azerbaijan, with Kapıköy, in Turkey’s Van Province. The two border points are only a few kilometres apart—so close that the distance between them may barely register on a map. Yet this short distance places a person under two entirely different criminal justice systems. And I was thinking about which aspects might have received less attention, when this question occurred to me. Imagine someone arrested on this side of the border, in Iran, on suspicion of an offence for which the law may prescribe the death penalty. A few kilometres away, in Turkey, there is a fundamental difference: the death penalty has been removed from the criminal justice system. Turkey abolished this punishment for all offences in 2004 and joined an international protocol aimed at abolishing the death penalty in 2006. Of course, the criminal laws of the two countries are not identical, and we cannot say that every specific act has precisely the same criminal classification and penalty on both sides of the border. But there is much in common, and both countries are considered Muslim. The next point is that on one side of this line, death exists and can still be one of the legal punishments, while on the other, the state has removed such a punishment from the powers of the judicial system. So how many kilometres lie between life and execution? A few kilometres of road, or just a line on a map? Over the years, many books, articles and studies have been written about the death penalty, and its legal, ethical, political and social dimensions have been examined time and again. I have also addressed aspects of this subject in two earlier articles, ‘The Islamic Republic’s Execution Machine: Repression in Response to Crises’ and ‘Execution Before the Execution’, including the psychological consequences for the individual and their family before an execution. This time, I do not want to repeat those discussions. I want to look at the issue from another angle: geographical borders. If the right to life is a universal right, why can a political line on a map still play such a role in the degree to which a human life is protected? This question is not limited to Iran and Turkey. At the end of 2025, 113 countries had abolished the death penalty for all offences, and 145 countries had abolished it in law or in practice. Yet in the same year, Amnesty International recorded at least 2,707 executions in 17 countries; 2,159 of them were in Iran. These figures do not include possible large-scale executions in China and some other countries, owing to a lack of reliable information. As a result, we face a contradiction: the geography of executions in the world has shrunk, but the death penalty has not yet disappeared from the world. Part of this contradiction lies within international law itself. Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recognises the right to life, but does not absolutely prohibit the death penalty for countries that have not yet abolished it. The UN Human Rights Committee has interpreted this exception very narrowly, limiting ‘the most serious crimes’ to crimes of exceptional gravity involving intentional killing. On the other hand, the Second Optional Protocol to the same Covenant was drawn up with the aim of abolishing the death penalty, but it binds only the states that have joined it. By 2026, 92 states were parties to this Protocol. Turkey is one of them; Iran is not. This is where the geographical question turns from a simple image into a legal issue. If the right to life is universal, why does its protection still depend on which treaty a state has accepted, what laws it has enacted, and on which side of a border a person lives? Since 2007, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly called on states that still retain the death penalty to suspend its use as a step towards abolition. The latest resolution was adopted in December 2024, with 130 votes in favour, 32 against and 22 abstentions. This trend shows that international support for ending executions is growing, but a General Assembly resolution alone cannot remove this punishment from countries’ laws. There is, therefore, still a distance between ‘regarding the right to life as universal’ and ‘making its protection universal’. This year, 10 October—the World Day Against the Death Penalty—is just five days away. Its theme, ‘Stories for Life’, focuses on the people behind the sentence, the case file and the statistics: people with families, pasts, hopes and futures; stories that should not be reduced to a case number. This week, the attention of opponents of the death penalty, both inside and outside Iran, will once again turn to the issue. Events and initiatives connected with the occasion can be considered separately. But before any event or gathering, it may be worth carrying a simple question with us: if human life has universal value, why can the place where a person lives still determine whether the state reserves the right to take it? Perhaps this question is enough for 10 October. It is only a few kilometres from Razi to Kapıköy. But those same few kilometres show that the world is still far from making the right to life truly universal. We must be the voice of human lives, confined and beneath the blades of executioners and tyrants. The right to life, if it is truly universal, should not lose its validity at a border crossing. Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/entry-1791295464379-ed0e7688 Please credit the author and link to this edition.