Public Statement by a number of Iranian human rights, civil rights and women’s rights activists
May 11, 2010
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGhVcDZEd0V6RDlpbDI4YlFBSUJhbHc6MQ
In the early hours of Sunday 9 May 2010 five people including one woman were executed in Iran. Farzad Kamangar, Farhad Vakili, Ali Haydarian, Mehdi Eslamian and Shirin Alam Houie are the latest victims of the death penalty. But if ever possible, their executions were even more deplorable because they were not tried by a competent court observing Islamic Republic’s own internal laws. The cases of three of those executed were still under review. Some families were promised that their loved ones would be reprieved. They spoke with their families on Saturday afternoon without either party knowing that this was to be the last time they heard each other’s voice and suddenly ... Evin’s phone lines went down.
Farzad, Shirin, Farhad, Ali and Mehdi were repeatedly tortured, ill treated and degraded and deprived of the most basic right of legal counsel. No one including their lawyers and families had any knowledge of their impending executions. The condition under which they passed the last night of their lives is not yet known. It is obvious however, that they were not even allowed a final farewell with their loved ones. Letters that these five individuals had written previously from prison told of the atrocious conditions they had to endure while their fate was being decided by the so called Islamic justice.
At least 388 people were executed in 2009 including minors and juvenile offenders. According to Amnesty International reports, the annual number of executions in Iran has almost quadrupled since 2005. As was most apparent during the show trials of summer 2009, none of those executed received fair trials. In addition to 130 juvenile offenders, 22 Kurds, 6 Baluchis, 1 Iranian Arab and 14 individuals in Tehran have been identified who remain at the imminent risk of execution.
As we express our abhorrence at these executions, we also express our grave concern for all those who remain in detention after the June 2009 presidential election under pressure to accept false charges that potentially carry the death penalty as ultimate punishment.
We condemn the State’s acts of violence against its own people and urge the international community of human rights defenders, especially at the United Nations to condemn the recent executions and to bring pressure on the Islamic Republic to facilitate the visits of Special Rapporteurs to Iran to examine the prisons, talk to the families and investigate the atrocities committed by the Islamic Republic.
We ask all human rights organisations to strongly condemn the shameful use of the death penalty as a political tool of oppression in Iran.
cc: The Secretary General – United Nations
The Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights
Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
* Erforderlich
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