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Iran’s Death Penalty Is Seen as a
Political Tactic
24.11.2009
By Michael Slackman
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November 24, 2009
CAIRO, — A flurry of executions and death
sentences in Iran has raised concern that the
government is using judicially sanctioned killing to
intimidate the political opposition and quell
pockets of ethnic unrest around the nation, human
rights groups and Iran experts said.
In Iran, where there is precedent for executions to
surge in the wake of a crisis, human rights groups
said there was mounting evidence that the trend had
emerged in response to the political tumult that
followed the June presidential election. This month,
a fifth person connected to the protests was
sentenced to death.
In at least one instance, a Kurdish activist was
hanged after the government added a new charge,
raising concerns that cases with political overtones
were drawing more serious penalties.
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A protester holds a portrait of Kurdish activist
Ehsan Fattahian during a demonstration against the
Iranian government in Turkey on Saturday. Photo:
Nytimes com |
In
the short period between the disputed June election
and the inauguration of President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad in August, 115 people were executed,
according to statistics compiled by human rights
groups from Iranian news agencies. Though the
executions mostly involved violent criminals and
drug dealers, the number and pace of the killings
appeared to be sending a message to the opposition,
said human rights groups and Iran experts.
“The regime never expected to see people demonstrate
so openly since the elections,” said Hossein Askari,
a professor of international affairs at George
Washington University. “The executions are intended
to frighten them. It is absolutely intended for that
purpose.”
The executions have taken place amid rising
criticism of Iran’s postelection human rights
record. Former officials, intellectuals and
journalists have received long prison sentences
after brief televised trials, and some prisoners
have said they were tortured, raped and sodomized by
prison authorities.
Muhammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president, was
sentenced last week to six years in prison “for
crimes against internal national security,
propaganda against the Islamic republic, insulting
the president and creating public disorder by his
presence at illegal protests,” a Web site on Iran
reported. He was released on bail, pending appeal.
The United Nations passed a draft resolution last
week criticizing Iran for numerous human rights
abuses; the final resolution is expected to pass the
General Assembly.
“The recent spike in executions, particularly of
political prisoners, is an attempt to sow fear and
spread terror through the population, to persuade
them that the powers that be are determined to use
all means necessary to put down dissent and that
participating in the opposition movement can be
highly costly,” said Hadi Ghaemi, a former physics
professor who runs the International Campaign for
Human Rights in Iran.
In recent years, Iran has had the highest rate of
executions of any nation except China. That
reputation was solidified under President
Ahmadinejad, who has presided over a quadrupling in
executions, to 346 in 2008 from 86 in 2005, the year
he took office, according to Amnesty International.
Iran does not release statistics on executions, so
it is impossible to compare monthly or annual rates.
But in recent days, there has been a flood of
reports from around the country of executions, most
involving convicted drug dealers or criminals. On
Friday, news reports said that over the previous 10
days, 16 people had been executed in cities
including Kerman, Isfahan and Ahwaz.
In mid-October, Behnood Shojaee, who was on death
row for committing a murder four years ago at the
age of 17, was executed despite international calls
for his sentence to be commuted because he was a
minor at the time of the crime.
Drewery Dyke, a researcher with Amnesty
International, said that it was not unusual for
Iranian officials to step up executions in the wake
of a political crisis. In 1988, after Iran agreed to
a cease-fire with Iraq, the government executed
thousands of political prisoners not initially
charged with capital crimes and already serving
sentences in prison.
“There does seem to be a greater willingness across
the spectrum for the authorities to deploy force in
every way, from the police through to the
administration of justice,” he said. “There seems to
be that much higher level of ruthlessness.”
According to Amnesty International, there were 196
executions in Iran in the first half of 2009.
Between the June 12 election and the president’s
inauguration on Aug. 5, executions surged to an
average of two a day,www.ekurd.netthe
group said. So far this year, there have been 359
executions, though an exact tally is hard to come by
because the group compiles the data based on reports
from government-affiliated news sources.
Since the postelection surge in executions, the
government has moved aggressively to impose the
death penalty on people linked to separatist
insurgent groups, even when they have not been
convicted of violent activities themselves, human
rights groups said.
Concern about executions with political overtones
increased with the case of Ehsan Fattahian, 28, who
was convicted of belonging to an armed Kurdish
group, rights groups said. He was originally
sentenced to 10 years in prison, but then the
government added the charge of being mohareb, or an
enemy of God, and hanged him on Nov. 11.
His parents were not allowed to see his body and the
authorities did not permit a public mourning
service, opposition Web sites reported.
According to pro-Kurdish rights groups, a special
execution team has been sent to the western province
of Kurdistan, where the groups said 12 Kurdish
prisoners were awaiting the death penalty. It was
impossible to verify that claim.
After Mr. Fattahian’s execution, a group of Kurdish
members of Parliament wrote a letter asking the head
of the judiciary to drop death sentences against
other Kurdish prisoners, Iranian news agencies
reported.
A spokesman at the Iranian mission to the United
Nations in New York did not respond to two e-mail
messages requesting comment on the use of the death
penalty.
Since the election crisis, Iran has not allowed
foreign reporters to work in the country. But
Iranian officials have defended the death penalty in
the past.
“We have laws,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said at an
appearance at Columbia University in 2007. “People
who violate the public rights of the people by using
guns, killing people, creating insecurity, sell
drugs, distribute drugs at a high level, are
sentenced to execution in Iran, and some of these
punishments — very few are carried in the public
eye, before the public eye. It’s a law based on
democratic principles.”
But Mr. Ghaemi of the International Campaign for
Human Rights in Iran said that often, death
sentences are issued to defendants who have not been
given a proper chance to defend themselves, in
trials of questionable fairness and merit.
“There is growing fear that another jump in
executions is under way,” he said. “Most troubling
is that execution of political prisoners has
resumed.”
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting.
Copyright, respective
author or news agency,
nytimes com
Iranian Kurdistan
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Iranian Kurdistan (Kurdish: Kurdistana Îranę or
Kurdistana Rojhilat (Eastern Kurdistan) or Rojhilatę
Kurdistan (East of Kurdistan)) is an unofficial name
for the parts of Iran inhabited by Kurds and has
borders with Iraq and Turkey. It includes the
greater parts of West Azerbaijan province, Kurdistan
Province, Kermanshah Province, and Ilam Province.
Kurds form the majority of the population of this
region with an estimated population of 4 million.
The region is the eastern part of the greater
cultural-geographical area called Kurdistan.
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