A/HRC/34/54/Add.3 28 of the General Assembly resolution 68/156, stating that prolonged or indefinite solitary confinement runs afoul of the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Additionally, due to the prisoner’s lack of communication, as well as the lack of witnesses inside the prison, solitary confinement may also give rise to other acts of torture or ill-treatment. 201. The Special Rapporteur urges the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to comply with its obligations under international customary law to investigate, prosecute, and punish all acts of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment as codified, inter alia, in the Convention against Torture (CAT) and the ICCPR. JUA 02/06/2015 Case No. IRN 7/2015 State Reply: 04/03/2016 Allegations concerning the situation of two juvenile offenders who are at risk of imminent execution. 202. The Special Rapporteur thanks the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for its reply, dated 4 March 2016, to the present communication, available via the link above. 203. The Special Rapporteur takes note of the information provided by the Government that Mr. Naseem was being held in Zanjan Prison, that his request for a new hearing was accepted by Branch 37 of the Supreme Court on 22 August 2015, and that the case was under examination by a parallel branch in provincial criminal court. In spite of the information provided, the Special Rapporteur finds that the Government, in its reply, does not sufficiently address the concerns, legal obligations, and questions raised in the initial communication, having failed to provide information concerning the alleged incommunicado detention of Mr. Naseem, and further having failed to provide any information about the case of Mr. Hamid Ahmadi, thereby prompting him to conclude that the Government has failed to fully and expeditiously cooperate with the mandate issued by the Human Rights Council in resolution 25/13. 204. In this context, and in light of the Government’s imposition of the death penalty upon juvenile offenders, the Special Rapporteur concludes that there is substance in the allegations presented in the initial communication, available via the link above, and that the Government has violated Mr. Naseem’s and Mr. Ahmadi’s rights be free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as provided by article 7 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). 205. As observed by the Special Rapporteur in his 2012 report to the General Assembly (A/67/279), there is evidence of an evolving standard within international bodies and a robust State practice to frame the debate about the legality of the death penalty within the context of the fundamental concepts of human dignity and the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This evolving standard, along with the resulting illegality of the death penalty under such prohibition, is developing into a norm of customary law, if it has not already done so (para. 74). Even if this customary norm is still under way, the Special Rapporteur considers that most conditions under which capital punishment is actually applied render the punishment tantamount to torture and that under many other, less severe conditions, it still amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (para.75). The Special Rapporteur emphasizes that the execution of persons who committed their crimes while they were under 18 years of age is per se a violation of an existing norm of customary international law (para. 64). Furthermore, any judgments imposing the death sentence and executions of juvenile offenders amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, which is prohibited inter alia in the CAT, and violate the Government’s obligation under article 40