Amnesty International calls for the death sentence of Barzan Nasrollahzadeh to be overturned
Amnesty International has issued an appeal calling for the death sentence of Barzan Nasrollahzadeh, a prisoner on death row in Iran. Mr. Nasrollahzadeh was 17 years old at the time of his arrest.
On Monday, October 12, Amnesty International issued this call, calling on people and human rights activists around the world to write a letter to the Iranian authorities, using their own words and pen, and inspired by this call, to respond to the death sentence of this young Iranian man and demand that the death sentence of Barzan Nasrollahzadeh be stopped.
According to this human rights organization, Barzan Nasrollahzadeh is an Iranian Sunni Kurd who was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents in Sanandaj on June 29, 2019. He was held in a Ministry of Intelligence detention center for several months without access to his family and was interrogated without access to a lawyer.
According to Amnesty International, Barzan Nasrollahzadeh, who was 17 years old at the time of his arrest, was subjected to various forms of torture during his interrogations, including electric shocks and other ill-treatment, and was forced to make incriminating statements against himself, and he was forced to confess in front of a video camera.
According to available information, Mr. Nasrollahzadeh’s trial was grossly unfair. In this trial, footage of his confessions on camera was used as admissible evidence in court, and Branch 28 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court convicted him on charges including “moharebeh.” His death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in August 2015.
According to Amnesty International, information obtained indicates that in September of this year, "the Execution Center has been busy processing the case of Barzan Nasrollahzadeh, which raises concerns that his execution may be scheduled for a date in the near future."
Amnesty International has emphasized: “As a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Iran is obligated not to use the death penalty against persons who were under the age of 18 at the time of the commission of the crime.” The organization says that despite this, the Islamic Republic regime “has not adhered to this obligation and continues to execute persons who were under the age of 18 at the time of the commission of the crime.”
Also, according to this human rights organization, the Islamic Republic of Iran executed at least 251 people in 2019, and Amnesty International was able to record the execution of four prisoners this year: Amin Sedaghat, Mehdi Sohrabifar, Amir Ali Shadabi, and Touraj Aziz (Azizzadeh) Ghasemi, who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime and whose death sentences have been carried out.
Amnesty International had previously stated that the Islamic Republic of Iran has executed more juvenile offenders than any other country in the world. In May 2019, the organization announced in a report that Iran alone was responsible for 97 executions of children under the age of 18 worldwide since 1990, equivalent to two-thirds of all such executions.
Amnesty International has documented 90 cases of people who were under 18 at the time of the crime and are currently on death row in Iran, although the actual number is likely higher.
The US State Department has repeatedly and on various occasions condemned the repeated and persistent violations of the rights of Iranian citizens by the ruling regime in that country.
Source: Voice of America
