As a signatory to the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child, the government of Yemen is not supposed to sentence to death children who committed crimes before the age of 18. In fact, parties to the treaty aren't even supposed to sentence minors to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But treaty obligations be damned -- Yemeni officials are on the verge of executing a juvenile offender.

As Amnesty International reports, the Yemeni government has stopped allowing Muhammed Taher Thabet Samoum from receiving visitors in prison, a development the human rights group suggests is a sign "his execution could be imminent." Samoum was sentenced to death by firing squad for a murder he allegedly committed in 1999, when he says he was under 18 (like many others in the region, he does not have a birth certificate).

"We urge President Ali Abdullah Saleh to show clemency in this case and prevent the state killing of Muhammed Taher Thabet Samoum," says Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's director for the Middle East and North Africa. "The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, and it must never be applied to juvenile offenders."

Join Amnesty International, anti-death penalty campaigners and other human rights activists in urging Yemeni officials to stop executing juvenile offenders and grant clemency to Muhammed Taher Thabet Samoum.

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