Iran news in brief, May 11, 2019

Iran news in brief, May 11, 2019

Iran: Executions of Child Offenders Must Stop, Say UN Experts

UN human rights experts called on Iran to immediately halt the practice of executing child offenders, citing serious concerns for up to 90 individuals who were all under the age of 18 at the time of their alleged offences and are on death row.

“The executions of two 17-year-old boys last week underlines our concerns that the Iranian authorities continue to give scant regard to international law which forbids executions of minors,” said the experts. “These executions must stop.”

“The Iranian judiciary should ensure that the circular requiring judges not to sentence children to death is implemented, and order retrials for all child offenders on death row without recourse to the death penalty in line with international law.”

Pentagon: US Moving Patriot Missile Battery to Mideast

The Pentagon says the U.S. will move a Patriot missile battery into the Middle East region to counter threats from Iran.

The department provided no details, but a defense official says the move comes after intelligence showed that the Iranians have loaded military equipment and missiles onto small boats.

The official was not authorized to discuss the information publicly so spoke anonymously.

U.S. Warns Merchant Ships of Possible Iranian Attacks in Middle East

U.S. commercial ships including oil tankers sailing through key Middle East waterways could be targeted by Iran in one of the threats to U.S. interests posed by Tehran, the U.S. Maritime Administration said in an advisory.

On Thursday, the U.S. Maritime Administration said, oil production infrastructure, after Tehran threatened to close the vital Strait of Hormuz chokepoint through which about one third of the world's seaborne crude exports flow.

MARAD said: "Iran or its proxies could respond by targeting commercial vessels, including oil tankers, or U.S. military vessels in the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, or the Persian Gulf,”.

Iran's Trade With Germany Hit Hard Amid U.S. Sanctions

Iran’s trade with its biggest European trade partner, Germany, has been hit hard by U.S. sanctions in 2019, according to data from the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

"The market in Iran is extremely difficult because of the US sanctions and because of the country's economic framework," the head of the German-Iranian chamber of commerce, Dagmar von Bohnstein, was quoted as saying by the Funke newspapers.

With U.S. trade and banking sanction reimposed last August, Iran’s non-oil exports have declined across the board. Oil exports have virtually come to a standstill in May, as the U.S. ended import exemptions it had offered to eight countries in November.