Cairo (AP): Human Rights Watch has called on Iran to stop sending children as young as 16 to the gallows, and fulfill its promise to outlaw the practice.

The New York-based human rights group, together with 23 other organisations, sounded the alarm over Iran's policy of executing those under 18, noting that four other Iranians are scheduled to be put to death this summer.

The minors in question have all been convicted of murder.

"Iran is violating international law every time it executes a juvenile offender whether or not the individual has reached 18 at the time of his or her execution," read the joint statement yesterday.

In a move strongly condemned by the European Union, Iran executed a Kurdish-Iranian 16-year-old boy in June for a crime he committed two years earlier.

Iranian judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi had earlier announced that the execution of minors has "practically stopped" and that the country was working to outlaw the procedure.

Iran is a member state of both the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child; "both of which prohibit the execution of persons under the age of 18 at the time of their offence," said HRW.

Iran had executed at least 17 juvenile offenders, eight times more than any other country, since the beginning of 2004, including two so far this year, according to an HRW count.