Iran's sorry record of death....

I'd like the know the real stats on amputations...

Defiant to the end, a convicted killer - and hero to some - faces his executioners.

A hooded gunman stands guard as Majid Kavousifar has the noose placed around his neck.

He gives a final wave to his family and even manages a smile before the bar stool he is standing on is suddenly kicked away. The body of rebel leader Kavousifar, 28 - found guilty of assassinating a judge - swings from a crane watched by a small, silent crowd outside Tehran's Judiciary headquarters.

This is "justice", Mullah-style.

More than 1,000 men, women and children have been hanged in Iran in the three years to last December.

In the first month of this year, 59 died, including a 35-year-old woman after 12 years in Rafsanjan prison. In December two men were stoned to death, a third being spared after he managed to clamber out of a pit where he was buried up to his shoulders.

The official 170 forms of punishment include limb amputation without anaesthetic and gouging out eyes with a spoon-like instrument.

Iran has executed the highest number of children in the world since 1990. Currently 71 sentenced to death await the gallows.

Since the Islamic Republic of Iran was set up 30 years ago, about 120,000 political prisoners have been hanged. About 600,000 have been tortured in the mullahs' notorious prisons. This is medieval murder on an industrial scale.