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Kurdish Iranian journalist once under
sentence of death gets 10-year jail term on retrial
3.7.2009
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July
3, 2009
SANANDAJ (Sina), Iranian Kurdistan, — Adnan
Hassanpour, a Kurdish journalist whose death
sentence was quashed in August 2008, was sentenced
Wednesday to 10 years in prison by the court in the
Kurdish city of Sanandaj that retried his case,
Reporters Without Borders has learned from his
family.
“This sentence is absurd and baseless,” Reporters
Without Borders said. “One day, this journalist is
sentenced to death. Two years later he gets a
ten-year sentence. We reiterate our call for his
immediate release.”
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Kurdish journalists
Adnan Hassanpur |
The death sentence was
passed on Hassanpour on 16
July 2007 by a revolutionary tribunal
in Mariwan, in Iran’s Kurdistan northwestern region
(Eastern Kurdistan), which found him guilty of
subversive activities against national security,
espionage and separatist propaganda.
After first confirming the sentence on 22 October
2007, the supreme court in Tehran quashed it in
August 2008 on procedural grounds. It said
Hassanpour could not be regarded as “mohareb” (and
enemy of God).
The case was returned to an ordinary court in
Sanandaj for retrial. After hearing the case on 6
September 2008 and 30 January 2009, the court issued
its sentence Wednesday. Hassanpour, who has staged
two hunger strikes in protest against the conditions
in which he is being held,www.ekurd.net
is currently in the main
Sanandaj prison.
Aged 27, he was arrested outside his home on 25
January 2007, and was initially imprisoned in
Mahabad, which is also in Iranian Kurdistan. He
wrote about the very sensitive Kurdish issue for the
magazine Asou, which has been banned by the Ministry
of Culture and Islamic Guidance since August 2005.
He also worked for foreign media such as Voice of
America and Radio Farda, which broadcasts in Farsi
to Iran.
• November 9th 2007- Supreme court decision
upholding death sentence
for Kurdish journalist should be “taken seriously”
Reporters Without Borders today condemned the
supreme court’s decision to uphold the death
sentence for Kurdish-Iranian journalist
Adnan Hassanpour
for “spying.” The ruling was issued on 22 October
but was not revealed until this week.
The court quashed the conviction of another
journalist convicted in the same case, Abdolvahed
“Hiva” Botimar, on the grounds of procedural
irregularity. Botimar had also been under sentence
of death.
“We have been waiting for than six months for the
supreme court to decide whether to reopen the case
against Iranian-Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi’s
alleged murderers, but it took the court only a few
weeks to uphold Hassanpour’s death sentence, so the
judicial system clearly continues to have a
pro-government bias,” Reporters Without Borders
said.
“We appeal to the international community to take
every possible action to get this journalist
released,” the press freedom organisation added.
“This sentence should be taken very seriously as
Iran has already executed more than 300 people since
the start of the year.”
Saleh Nikbakht, one of the lawyers representing the
two journalists, was notified on 5 November of the
court’s decision although he was not given the
details of the ruling. He said Hassanpour had been
found guilty of “espionage” because he had allegedly
“revealed the location of military sites and
established contacts with the US foreign affairs
ministry.”
He added that the court overturned Botimar’s
conviction on the grounds of a “procedural
irregularity,” and sent his case back to the same
revolutionary court in Marivan (in the Kurdish
northwest of Iran) that convicted him and Hassanpour
on 16 July on charges of spying, “subversive
activity against national security” and “separatist
propaganda.”
Nikbakht told Reporters Without Borders: “This
sentence is not only contrary to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the international
conventions ratified by Iran, but it also contrary
to Islamic law and the laws of the Islamic
Republic.”
Hassanpour, 27, and Botimar, 29, used to work for
the weekly Asou, covering the sensitive Kurdish
issue, until the newspaper was banned by the
Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in August
2005. Hassanpour also worked for foreign news media
including Voice of America and Radio Farda.
An ardent advocate of Kurdish cultural rights,
Hassanpour was arrested outside his home on 25
January and was taken to Mahabad, where he was not
allowed to receive visits from his family or his
lawyer. Botimar, an active member of the
environmental NGO Sabzchia, was arrested on 25
December. For the past several months, Hassanpour
and Botimar have been held in Sanandaj prison, where
their lawyers have not been allowed to meet with
them in private in order to inform them of the
supreme court’s decision.
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch recently
published a new report in 2009 detailing the repression of Iran's
Kurdish population by the Iranian government in Iranian Kurdistan (Eastern
Kurdistan). In this report, the Human Rights Watch strongly criticizes Iranian
government for violating human rights and freedom of expression in Kurdistan.
Kurds make up approximately 7 percent of the population, estimate to 12 million
Kurds live in Iran and live mainly in the
northwest regions of the country.
The report shows how the regime, in an increasingly
aggressive campaign, uses so-called security and
press laws to arrest and prosecute Kurdish Iranians
simply for exercising their rights of freedom of
expression and association. Numerous newspapers and
magazines have been closed; editors and writers have
been imprisoned; non-governmental organizations have
been refused permits to operate; and human rights
defenders like Farzad Kamangar have been sentenced
to death.
In a report released in July 2008,www.ekurd.net
the human rights
organisation, Amnesty International
expressed concern
about the increased repression of Kurdish Iranians,www.ekurd.net
particularly human rights defenders.
The U.S. calls on Iran to stop the repression of all
Iranians,www.ekurd.net
including Kurdish
Iranians, who only seek the peaceful exercise of
their universal human rights. In addition, the U.S.
urges the Government of Iran to follow the rule of
law, and free all political prisoners, like Farzad
Kamangar, who are imprisoned because of their
efforts to defend the rights of the Iranian people.
The report cited examples of religious and cultural
discrimination against the estimated 12 million
Kurds who live in Iran.
“We urge the Iranian authorities to take concrete
measures to end any discrimination and associated
human rights violations that Kurds,www.ekurd.net
indeed all
minorities in Iran, face,” Amnesty said in its
report.
“Kurds and all other members of minority communities
in Iran, men, women and children, are entitled to
enjoy their full range of human rights.”
The International Alliance
in Support of Workers in Iran (IASWI) provides the
following list of
persecuted activists:
* Sousan Razani, 36 years old, a resident of the
city of Sandandaj in Iranian Kurdistan, sentenced to 9 months
imprisonment and 70 lashes, for participation in the
2008 May Day rally in Sanandaj; charged with "the
breach of public order—participation in an illegal
assembly in front of the Social Security building."
* Shiva Kheirabadi, 25 years old, a resident of the
city of Sanandaj in Iranian Kurdistan, sentenced to
4 months imprisonment and 15 lashes, for
participation in the 2008 May Day rally in Sanandaj;
charged with the "breach of public
order"—participation in an illegal assembly in front
of the Social Security building.
* Seyed Qaleb Hosseini, 46 years old, a resident of
the city of Sanandaj in Iranian Kurdistan, was
sentenced to 6 months imprisonment and 50 lashes,
for participation in the 2008 May Day rally in
Sanandaj; charged with the "breach of public
order"—participation in an illegal assembly in front
of the Social Security building.
* Abdullah Khani, 49 years old, a resident of the
city of Sanandaj in Iranian Kurdistan, sentenced to
91 days prison and 40 lashes, for participation at
the 2008 May Day rally in Sanandaj; charged with the
"breach of public order"—participation in an illegal
assembly in front of the Social Security building.
* Seyed Khaled Hosseini, 49 years old, a resident of
the city of Sanandaj in Iranian Kurdistan, sentenced
to three months and one additional day in jail and
30 lashes, sentences suspended for two years;
charged with the "breach of public
order"—participation in a rally outside Sanandaj
prison in support of Mahmoud Salehi on March 23,
2008.
* Afshin Shams, a labor activist, a member of
Coordinating Committee to Help Form Workers'
Organizations, a member of Committee in Defense of
Mahmoud Salehi and also a member of Caricaturist
Society; incarcerated since July 04, 2008 without
trial.
*
Farzad Kamangar
is a 33 year old teacher, journalist and a human
rights activist from Kurdistan, Iran. Farzad Kamangar has been sentenced to death, found guilty
of "risking national security and being a member of
the Kurdistan Workers Party." Mr. Kamangar has been
subjected to brutal torture and lengthy
imprisonment.
* Mansour Osanloo, President of the board of
directors of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and
Suburbs Bus Company. Mr. Osanloo has been jailed
numerous times. The last time, he was abducted on
July 10, 2007 and later was transferred to the Evin
Prison and never released since. He has been
sentenced to 5 years imprisonment. There have been
numerous international campaigns for his freedom.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
rsf org | Agencies
Iranian Kurdistan
**
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.
More about Iranian Kurdistan
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