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Amnesty calls on Iran to halt execution of
33 Kurds
13.6.2014
Amnesty
International.
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Accounts of Cases Raise
Fair Trial Concerns
June 13,
2014
LONDON,— The Iranian authorities should quash
the death sentences of 33 Sunni Muslim men,
including possibly a juvenile offender, convicted of
“enmity against God” (moharebeh), and impose an
immediate moratorium on all executions, 18 human
rights organizations and one prominent human rights
lawyer said today. The call comes amid serious
concerns about the fairness of the legal proceedings
that led to the men’s convictions and the high
number of executions reported in Iran during the
last year, including the June 1, 2014 hanging of a
political dissident, Gholamreza Khosravi Savadjani,
on the same charge.
Information the rights groups gathered suggests that
most of the men were arrested by Intelligence
Ministry officials in the western province of
Kordestan [Iranian Kurdistan region]www.Ekurd.net
in 2009 and 2010, and held in solitary confinement
during their pretrial detention for several months
without access to a lawyer or relatives. They are
believed to have been tortured or otherwise
ill-treated during that time.
Thirty one of them were tried by Branch 28 of the
Revolutionary Court of Tehran, while one was tried
by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran
and another by a branch of the Revolutionary Court
of Sanandaj [Sne, Iranian Kurdistan]. They were
sentenced to death after being convicted of vaguely
worded national security offenses including
“gathering and colluding against national security,”
“spreading propaganda against the system,”
“membership in Salafist groups," “corruption on
earth,” and “enmity against God.” The latter two
charges can carry the death penalty.
These vaguely worded offenses in Iran's Islamic
Penal Code do not meet the requirements for clarity
and precision that international law outlines for
criminal law. The authorities, routinely invoke them
to arrest and imprison people who have peacefully
exercised their rights to freedom of religion,
expression, association, and assembly, or to accuse
activists of supporting violent or armed opposition
groups without evidence, the rights groups said.
Information gathered by the rights groups suggests
that all of the men deny any involvement in armed or
violent activities and maintain that they were
targeted solely because they practiced or promoted
their faith, such as taking part in religious
seminars and distributing religious reading
materials. Sunni Muslims are a minority in Iran,
where most Muslims follow the Shia branch of Islam.
Most Iranian Sunnis are from the Kurdish and Baluch
minorities, and have long complained of state
discrimination against them in both law and
practice.
Recent changes to Iran’s penal code require the
judiciary to review the cases of the 33 men, and
vacate their death sentences on the charge of
“enmity against God” if they had not personally
resorted to the use of arms. The execution of
Gholamreza Khosravi Savadjani, despite no evidence
being presented to the court that he had used arms,
suggests that Iranian authorities appear not to
implement new provisions of the penal code that
could save the lives of these 33 men, and others on
death row on the charge of “enmity against God.”
According to his national identity card, at least
one of the defendants, Borzan Nasrollahzadeh, is
believed to have been under 18 at the time of his
alleged offense, which would prohibit his execution
under international law, including under the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Iran
is a party.
Among the group are four men -- Hamed Ahmadi,
Jahangir Dehghani, Jamshid Dehghani and Kamal Molaee
-- accused of killing Mullah Mohammad Sheikh
al-Islam, a senior Sunni cleric with ties to the
Iranian authorities. The men have denied the
accusation, saying that they were arrested between
June and July 2009, several months before the
sheikh’s killing, in September. The Supreme Court
upheld the death sentences in September 2013, and
the sentences have been sent to the Office for the
Implementation of Sentences, the official body in
charge of carrying out executions. The men are
considered to be at imminent risk of execution.
The Supreme Court also confirmed the death sentences
of four other members of the group -- Seyed Jamal
Mousavi, Abdorahman Sangani, Sedigh Mohammadi and
Seyed Hadi Hosseini, the rights groups reported. The
other 25 men remain on death row pending review by
the Supreme Court. Most of them are believed to be
held in the Raja’i Shahr and Ghezel Hesar prisons in
the city of Karaj. One, Seyed Jamal Mousavi, is
reportedly in Sanandaj Prison in Kordestan province.
The rights groups are concerned that authorities
sentenced the 33 men to death after trials during
which basic safeguards, such as rights of defense,
were disregarded, in contravention of international
fair trial standards. Information gathered by the
groups indicates that at least some of the men were
denied access to a lawyer of their own choosing
before and during their trials, in breach of Article
35 of the Iranian Constitution, which guarantees the
right to counsel.
Their court-appointed lawyers were not allowed to
see them in prison and did not have access to their
files, according to information gathered by the
groups. A few of the men have alleged that they met
their lawyers for the first time a few minutes
before the start of their trials. The court
proceedings were held behind closed doors and
reportedly lasted only between 10 to 30 minutes.
Some of the men also alleged that the judiciary
handed down their death sentences based on
incriminating statements they were forced to sign
under torture and other ill-treatment, in violation
of Article 38 of the Iranian Constitution, which
prohibits all forms of torture “for the purpose of
obtaining confessions.” Several alleged in open
letters that they were physically and
psychologically abused during their detention. One
of the men, Shahram Ahmadi, wrote:
“Officers of the Revolutionary Guards kicked me in
the head and face, causing my nose and head to
break…I did not receive any treatment for my broken
nose…and I currently have breathing difficulties as
a result… [My] interrogator knew that I had been
injured [in a previous incident of mistreatment]. He
purposely punched me in my stomach and I began
bleeding heavily from my old wounds. I was
hospitalized in Sanandaj Hospital under a fake
name... later my wounds became infected but they
refused to give me medication.”
The rights groups have found no information
indicating that there was any investigation into
these allegations of torture and other
ill-treatment, contrary to Iran’s domestic law and
international law. Article 578 of Iran’s Islamic
Penal Code provides for the punishment of officials
who torture people to obtain confessions. Article 7
of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a party, prohibits
the use of torture and other ill-treatment.
The irregularities reported in the men’s trials
would also violate the fair trial provisions of
Article 14 of the ICCPR, which include the
presumption of innocence, adequate time and
facilities to prepare one’s defense and to
communicate with a lawyer of one’s choosing, and not
to be compelled to testify against oneself or to
confess guilt. The UN Human Rights Committee has
stated that: “In cases of trials leading to the
imposition of the death penalty scrupulous respect
of the guarantees of fair trial is particularly
important.”
In view of the apparently flawed legal proceedings,
these 18 human rights groups and one prominent human
rights lawyer urge the Iranian authorities to
immediately halt the execution of these men and
quash their sentences. Authorities should, at the
very least, grant these men retrials in proceedings
that comply with international standards of fair
trial, without recourse to the death penalty.
The 33 men are, in an alphabetical order: Hamed
Ahmadi, Shahram Ahmadi, Alam Barmashti, Jahangir
Dehghani, Jamshid Dehghani, Seyed Shaho Ebrahimi,
Varia Ghaderifard, Mohammad Gharibi, Seyed Abdol
Hadi Hosseini, Farzad Honarjo, Mohammad Keyvan
Karimi, Taleb Maleki, Kamal Molaee, Pouria Mohammadi,
Keyvan Momenifard, Sedigh Mohammadi, Seyed Jamal
Mousavi, Teymour Naderizadeh, Farshid Naseri, Ahmad
Nasiri, Borzan Nasrollahzadeh, Idris Nemati, Omid
Peyvand, Bahman Rahimi, Mokhtar Rahimi,
Mohammadyavar Rahimi, Abdorahman Sangani, Amjad
Salehi, Behrouz Shahnazari, Arash Sharifi, Kaveh
Sharifi, Farzad Shahnazari, and Kaveh Veysi.
Iran remains the second largest executioner in the
world, after China. In 2013, according to Amnesty
International figures, the Iranian authorities
officially acknowledged 369 executions. However,
reliable sources have reported that hundreds of
additional executions took place in 2013, bringing
the total to over 700. According to Amnesty
International, as of May 25, 151 executions during
2014 have been acknowledged by the authorities or
state-sanctioned media, while reliable sources have
reported at least 180 additional executions, for a
total of 331.
The rights groups are:
Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
Justice for Iran
Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation
Arseh Sevom
Association for Defense of Azerbaijani Political
Prisoners in Iran
Association for Human Rights in Kurdistan of
Iran-Geneva (KMMK-G)
Baloch Human Rights Organization
Center for Combating Racism & Discrimination against
Arabs in Iran
Centre for Supporters of Human Rights
Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM)
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
Iran Human Rights
Iran Human Rights Documentation Center
Step by Step to Stop Death Penalty (LEGAM)
Mehrangiz Kar
Nobel Women’s Initiative
Siamak Pourzand Foundation
United for Iran
For more information or to arrange an interview
please contact:
United for Iran
Director - Firuzeh Mahmoudi
[email protected]
+1 510 435 4131
Amnesty International
International Press Office
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7413 5566 Phone: +44 (0) 7778 472
126 Email: [email protected]
Human Rights Watch
In New Your, Faraz Sanei (English, Persian)
+1-212-216-1290; or +1-310-428-0153 (mobile); or
[email protected]. Follow on Twitter @farazsanei
In Washington, DC, Joe Stork (English):
+1-202-299-4925 (mobile); or [email protected] In
Cairo, Tamara Alrifai (English, Arabic, French,
Spanish): +20-122-751-2450 (mobile); or [email protected].
Follow on Twitter @TamaraAlrifai
Amnesty International June 12, 2014.
Copyright ©, respective author or news agency,
amnesty.org
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