Amnesty International Calls for Immediate Action to Stop Execution of Hushyar Alipour, Kurdish Prisoner

Amnesty International’s office in England is calling for immediate action by human rights advocates to prevent the imminent execution of Hushyar Alipour, an Iranian Kurdish prisoner who was sentenced to death in December of last year following an “unfair trial.”

Amnesty International England, on its urgent action page, has asked its contacts to correspond with Iranian judiciary officials and call for the halting of this execution sentence.

Amnesty International states that Hushyar Alipour and another Kurdish prisoner were denied fair trial conditions and confessed under torture at the IRGC detention center, with Mr. Alipour sentenced to death on charges of “armed rebellion against the government.” Amnesty International has called on the Islamic Republic of Iran to annul this sentence and provide fair trial conditions for him and other detained defendants.

Hushyar Alipour and Mohammad Estadghader were arrested by security forces in the city of Sanandaj on August 3, 2018, and one year later, on October 30, 2019, an execution sentence was issued for Alipour. The Islamic Republic claimed these two were “members of an opposition Kurdish party” and broadcast their confessions on state television last year. Amnesty International expressed concern at that time in response to these confessions. Sources close to the two prisoners later disclosed that both had been tortured at the IRGC detention center and forced confessions were extracted from them against themselves.

In recent months, the issuance of death sentences by Iran’s judiciary against opponents and protest participants has repeatedly faced criticism and protest from human rights organizations. Last month, Amnesty International protested the execution of Mostafa Salehi, one of those arrested during last year’s November protests.

The sentencing to death of three other detainees from the November protests—Amirhossein Moradi, Saeed Tamjidi, and Mohammad Rajabi—also faced widespread criticism from Persian-speaking Twitter users, and the hashtag “do not execute” trended on Twitter by these users. This action led to Iran’s judiciary suspending the execution and referring the case to the Supreme Court for retrial.

Source: Voice of America