Oslo, Norway (CNN) -- To escape Iran, Mohammad Mostafaei (left) traveled for more then 10 hours on foot and on horseback over the mountains, crossing the border illegally into Turkey.
Soon afterwards, he ended up in a detention center for illegal immigrants in Istanbul, where he was incarcerated for nearly a week.
After several surreal and sometimes dangerous weeks, Mostafaei's journey appears to finally be over. He now strolls the tidy, rain-soaked streets of Norway's capital, safe from the Iranian security forces who he claims targeted him. But Mostafaei is far from at ease.
"I don't like to be a refugee, nor do I like to work abroad," he says. "My love is to remain in Iran and help people who somehow have been oppressed whether by society or by the law or by the judicial system. But regrettably, I became a victim."
Mostafaei is a human rights lawyer. He specializes in defending Iranians under the age of 18, who have been sentenced to death for crimes ranging from murder to sodomy.
Iran ranks second in the world after China for annual executions of prisoners. But according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Iran leads the world for the number of death sentences carried out against juvenile defendants. Human Rights Watch reports that since 2005, the Iranian judiciary has executed dozens of Iranians who were convicted of crimes committed below the age of 18.
"I have worked and handled 40 cases so far and out of these, thank God, 18 were saved," Mostafaei says. "Regrettably four were hanged. The rest need help."
In 2008 and 2009, four of Mostafaei's juvenile clients were executed. They include Delara Darabi, who was hung on May 1st 2009 for a murder allegedly committed when she was 17 years old and Behnoud Shojai, executed on October 11th, 2009 for stabbing another teenager to death when he was 17 years old. Read more.
Source: CNN.com, August 14, 2010
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