Four Iranian Kurdish prisoners on death row at imminent risk amid reports of secret executions 15.6.2014
Amnesty International
LONDON,— Amnesty International, Public statement, 14 June 2014. AI Index: MDE 13/035/2014
Four Sunni Kurdish prisoners on death row, Hamed Ahmadi, Jahangir Dehghani, Jamshid Dehghani and Kamal Molaee, have been transferred to solitary confinement and are scheduled to be executed on Sunday 15 June on the charge of “enmity against God” (moharebeh), only days after reports of the secret execution of Ali Chebieshat and Sayed Khaled Mousawi on the same charge, warned Amnesty International.
Amnesty International calls on the authorities not to execute Hamed Ahmadi, Jahangir Dehghani, Jamshid Dehghani and Kamal Molaee and immediately impose a moratorium on all executions.
The families of the four men were called on 13 June to visit their relatives for the last time before their death sentence will be implemented in Rajae Shahr prison on 15 June. The four are accused of killing Mullah Mohammad Sheikh al-Islam, a senior Sunni cleric with ties to the Iranian authorities. The men deny the accusation, saying that they had been arrested between June and July 2009, several months before the sheikh’s killing in September 2009, and that they have been targeted solely because they practiced or promoted their faith, such as taking part in Sunni religious seminars and distributing Sunni reading materials. The Supreme Court had upheld the death sentences in September 2013, and the sentences had been sent to the Office for the Implementation of Sentences, the official body in charge of carrying out executions.
The authorities sentenced the four men to death after trials during which basic safeguards, such as rights of defense, were disregarded, in contravention of international fair trial standards
The organization’ call comes amid reports of the secret executions of Ali Chebieshat and Sayed Khaled Mousawi, two members of Iran’s Ahwazi minority who had been held in conditions amounting to enforced disappearance since March 2014.
Ali Chebieshat and Sayed Khaled Mousawi families learned on 12 June 2014 that the men had been executed. The circumstances surrounding the executions remain shrouded in secrecy as the families have been told neither about the date nor the place at which the executions took place, in violation of Iranian law which requires lawyers and families to be notified of scheduled executions 48 hours in advance. The authorities have never even provided the men’s families and lawyer with the verdict sentencing the two men to death.
On 12 June 2014, the brother and son of Ali Chebieshat were told to report to the Ministry of Intelligence office in Ahvaz, the capital of the Province of Khuzestan in southern Iran. They learned of Ali Chebieshat’s execution only after they were driven to a cemetery in Ramhormozz, a city more than 200 km away from the hometown of Ali Chebieshat in Kaab Khalaf Mosallam, Shush, Khuzestan, and shown an unmarked grave presented to them as the grave of Ali Chebieshat. The family of Sayed Khaled Mousawi were told by the Ministry of Intelligence office in Ahvaz that they would be taken to his burial location on 13 June 2014. Both families were warned against holding memorials for their executed relatives.
Later the same day, people in the home village of Ali Chebieshat who learned of his death went to the family home to mourn. Shortly thereafter, plainclothes agents from the Ministry of Intelligence reportedly arrived, and dispersed the informal gathering and arrested Ali Chebieshat’s brother and son. Both men were subsequently released on 13 June 2014 after providing a written guarantee to not hold a memorial for Ali Chebieshat.
At the time of writing, Sayed Khaled Mousawi’s family had not yet been taken to the site of his burial.
Ali Chebieshat and Sayed Khaled Mousawi were sentenced to death on 9 September 2013 by a Revolutionary Court in Ahvaz on the charge of “enmity against God”. The Revolutionary Court is understood to have handed down the sentence based on the men’s forced “confessions” to their role in the explosion of a natural gas pipeline close to their native village, despite the director of the state-owned Khuzestan Gas Company describing the explosion as an accident.
While they never received a written verdict, the family members of Ali Chebieshat and Sayed Khaled Mousawi had been informed informally by an official in the Revolutionary Courtwww.Ekurd.net of Ahwaz on 1 May that the men’s sentences had been upheld by the Supreme Court. Three weeks later on 19 May, they learned, through an informal conversation with a Ministry of Intelligence employee that the men would be executed on 22 May 2014. However, when both families went to the Ministry of Intelligence office in Ahvaz on 22 May 2014 for information about the fate of the men, the Ministry of Intelligence officials denied even having them in custody.
According to the UN Human Rights Committee persisting uncertainty of the circumstances that led to [an] execution, as well as the location of the grave; the complete secrecy surrounding the date of the execution and the place of burial, as well as the refusal to hand over the body for burial have the effect of intimidating or punishing the family by intentionally leaving it in a state of uncertainty and mental distress.� The Committee has viewed such treatment as inhuman treatment of the family members in violation of Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a state party.
Ali Chebieshat and Sayad Khaled Mousavi were arrested in November 2012 and taken to a Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in Ahvaz. They were held in solitary confinement in a Ministry of Intelligence detention centre with no access to the external world for over seven months. Amnesty International understands that they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated during this period. In court, the two men denied all the charges brought against them and their allegations of torture or other ill-treatment are not known to have been investigated.
In June or July 2013, Ministry of Intelligence officials told the men’s families that they could meet with the detainees in a mosque in the village of Jarieh. When they arrived at the mosque, the families realized that the room was equipped with cameras. Amnesty International understands that they were told that if they agreed to be filmed while watching their relatives’ recorded “confessions”, the authorities would consider reducing their punishments. They were not told that the recorded footage would be aired on national TV. Ali Chebieshat’s family members, who refused to be filmed, were apparently contacted by Ministry of Intelligence officials a few months later and coerced into being filmed or risk him being executed. In November 2013, Iran’s state-controlled Press TV and Channel 3 of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting aired a “documentary” called “Lost in Darkness” in which they showed the “confessions” of Ali Chebieshat and Sayed Khaled Mousawi and the footage of the family members.
Two other Ahwazi Arab men, Hadi Rashedi and Hashem Sha’bani Nejad were executed in secret at the end of January 2014 after they had been transferred to an undisclosed location. Their families were told by an official from the Ministry of Intelligence on 29 January 2014 that the two men had been executed and buried a few days earlier. Amnesty International understands that those men’s families were also not told the exact date of the executions, either in advance or after they had taken place, and have not received the men’s bodies. The official told the families they were not permitted to hold a public memorial for the two men and had only 24 hours in which to hold a private service. Three other Ahwazi Arab men, Mohammad Ali Amouri, Sayed Jaber Alboshoka and Sayed Mokhtar Alboshoka, who had been sentenced to death along with them, remain at risk of execution.
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 possible total to over 700. According to Amnesty International, as of 10 June, 157 executions during 2014 have been acknowledged by the authorities or state-sanctioned media, while reliable sources have reported at least 197 additional executions.
Case No. 2120/2011, Vladislav Kovalev et al. v. Belarus, views adopted on 29 October 2012, UN document CCPR/C/106/D/2120/2011, para. 11.10.
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Amnesty calls on Iran to halt execution of 33 Kurds 13.6.2014
Amnesty International.
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
firuzeh@united4iran.org
+1 510 435 4131
Amnesty International
International Press Office
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7413 5566 Phone: +44 (0) 7778 472 126 Email: press@amnesty.org
Human Rights Watch
In New Your, Faraz Sanei (English, Persian)
+1-212-216-1290; or +1-310-428-0153 (mobile); or saneif@hrw.org. Follow on Twitter @farazsanei
In Washington, DC, Joe Stork (English): +1-202-299-4925 (mobile); or storkj@hrw.org In Cairo, Tamara Alrifai (English, Arabic, French, Spanish): +20-122-751-2450 (mobile); or alrifat@hrw.org. Follow on Twitter @TamaraAlrifai
Amnesty International June 12, 2014.
