Mentally ill teen faces death in Iran for prostitution
A 19-year-old mentally retarded girl is going on trial for prostitution in Iran a crime that carries a death penalty sentence.
The trial, reports The Independent, follows that of the hanging of another mentally ill girl for sex before marriage in a case that has prompted a human rights lawyer to prepare a charge of wrongful execution against the presiding judge. The girl, known as Leyla M, is in prison while the Supreme Court decides on her acts contrary to chastity, among the most serious charges under Iranian law. Under the penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be executed. The 19-year-old says she was forced into prostitution by her mother at the age of eight. Full report in The Independent