Amnesty International: Seven Sunni Kurdish prisoners in Rajai Shahr prison are at risk of execution
Amnesty International issued a statement on Wednesday, March 1, warning that seven Sunni Kurdish prisoners in Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj are at risk of execution.
According to this human rights organization, Anwar Khezri, Ayoub Karimi, Davoud Abdollahi, Farhad Salimi, Qasem Abste, Kamran Sheikheh, and Khosrow Basharat were sentenced to death in June 2018 by the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran on charges such as "corruption on earth."
Amnesty International called the trial of these seven citizens "grossly unfair" and noted that the court verdict was based on "confessions" that the prisoners said were extracted from them under torture.
According to this report, after being arrested by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence, these seven Sunni Kurds were accused of being members of Salafi groups, but they have denied this accusation.
These individuals were arrested from mid-December 2009 to early February of the same year in West Azerbaijan Province.
The Amnesty International report also indicates that the court judge even denied the seven men's lawyers the right to defend themselves.
Amnesty International has called for the convictions and death sentences of these seven individuals to be overturned and for a fair retrial to be held for them.
In the supplementary section of its statement, this human rights organization has described some details related to the torture of these seven prisoners at risk of execution.
At least four of these seven Kurdish prisoners have written in open letters about the torture they suffered at the hands of Ministry of Intelligence agents during their interrogation.
Anwar Khezri wrote in February 2018 that after enduring nearly two months of torture after his arrest, including repeated beatings and blows to the chest, head, and soles of the feet in the Ministry of Intelligence detention center – which he called the Ministry of Intelligence’s “torture center” – he attempted suicide unsuccessfully.
In late February of this year, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the Islamic Republic of Iran to immediately suspend the death penalty.
The text of this resolution refers to the issue of the disproportionate use of the death penalty against women and minority groups in Iran, especially since the Ebrahim Raisi government came to power.
The United Nations previously announced in its annual report on human rights violations in Iran that at least 275 people were executed in 2021 alone. According to the report, 40 of those executed in 2021 were Baluch citizens and 50 were Kurdish citizens.
Source: Radio Farda
