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The two organizations warn that Iran uses the death penalty to repress ethnic minorities
March 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The NGO Amnesty International (AI) and the Abdorrahman Borouman Center have denounced this Thursday that the Iranian authorities have executed 94 people in the months of January and February in the framework of the anti-government protests that have been taking place since September following the death under custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian-Kurdish woman detained in the capital, Tehran.
“They are carrying out executions on a terrifying scale. Their actions constitute an attack on the right to life and a shameless attempt not only to further oppress ethnic minorities, but also to sow fears that dissent will be suppressed with the brute force, either in the streets or by hanging,” said the executive director of the NGO Abdorrahman Borouman, Roya Boroumand.
An investigation into the executions determines, as they have denounced in a joint statement, that the Iranian authorities exercise the death penalty as a form of repression against ethnic minorities. Of the total number of victims, 14 were Kurdish, 13 were Baluch and one was an Ahwazi Arab, a minority residing in Khuzestan province.
The two NGOs say that Hasan Abyat, from the Ahwadi minority, was executed in Sepidar prison in Khuzestan, while Arash Ahmadi, a Kurd, was executed in Dizel Abad prison in Kermanshah province in western country. Both were subjected to torture and ill-treatment to confess crimes.
“It is heartbreaking that executions routinely take place amid the systematic use of torture-tainted ‘confessions’ to convict defendants in grossly unfair trials,” said AI’s deputy regional director for the Middle and North East. from Africa, Diana Eltahawy.
For this reason, they recall that the death penalty — the “maximum punishment” as it is “cruel, inhuman and degrading” — after “an unfair trial” constitutes “an arbitrary deprivation of the right to life,” according to International Law .
“We urge all states to exercise universal jurisdiction over all Iranian officials who are reasonably suspected of having criminal responsibility for crimes under International Law and other serious violations of Human Rights,” Eltahawy concluded.
