Iran hangs Reyhaneh Jabbari despite campaign

Reyhaneh Jabbari

Iran has executed a woman who killed a man she said was trying to sexually abuse her.

Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, was hanged in a Tehran prison despite an international campaign urging a reprieve.

Jabbari was arrested in 2007 for the murder of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a former employee of Iran's ministry of intelligence.

Human rights group Amnesty International said she was convicted after a deeply flawed investigation.

A campaign calling for a halt to the execution was launched on Facebook and Twitter last month and appeared to have brought a temporary stay in execution.

However, government news agency Tasnim said on Saturday that Jabbari had been executed after her relatives failed to gain consent from the victim's family for a reprieve.

It said her claims of self-defence had not been proved in court.

'True intentions'

Jabbari's mother, Shole Pakravan, confirmed the execution in an interview with BBC Persian, saying she was going to the cemetery to see her daughter's body.

Ms Pakravan had been allowed to see her daughter for an hour on Friday.

After her arrest, Jabbari had been placed in solitary confinement for two months, where she reportedly did not have access to a lawyer or her family.

She was sentenced to death by a criminal court in Tehran in 2009.

Amnesty said that although Jabbari admitted to stabbing Abdolali Sarbandi once in the back, she alleged that there was someone else in the house who actually killed him.

Jalal Sarbandi, the victim's eldest son, said Jabbari had refused to identify the man.

He told Iranian media in April: "Only when her true intentions are exposed and she tells the truth about her accomplice and what really went down will we be prepared to grant mercy,"

The United Nations says Iran has executed about 250 people this year.

Source: BBC News, October 25, 2014

Reyhaneh Jabbari was Hanged this Morning

Despite several months of international calls for halting Reyhaneh’s death sentence, Iranian authorities executed Reyhaneh Jabbari early this morning. Iran Human Rights strongly condemns Reyhaneh Jabbari’s execution.

Iran Human Rights, October 25, 2014: The 26 year old Iranian woman, Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged in the Rajaishahr prison of Karaj early reyhanehthis morning, reported the Iranian state media. She was sentenced to “qesas” (retribution in kind) for murdering “Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi” in 2007, reported the state run Fars news agency. Reyhaneh had claimed that she stubbed Mr. Sarbandi in self defence. In the past months Iran Human Rights (IHR) together many other human rights groups and the UN Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed had called for a halt of the execution and providing her a fair trial.

IHR strongly condemns Reyhaneh Jabbari’s execution. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR said: “We send our condolences to Reyhaneh’s family and everyone who made an attempt to stop this execution. Like many others who are executed in Iran, Reyhaneh was not subjected to a fair trial and due process. Through the inhumane “qesas” law, the Iranian authorities try to put the responsibility of the execution on the family of the murder victim, but it is the Iranian Supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the Judiciary who are responsible and must be held accountable for the execution of Reyhaneh and hundreds of other executions every year”.

Source: Iran Human Rights, October 25, 2014

Execution of young woman another bloody stain on Iran’s human rights record

The execution of Iranian Reyhaneh Jabbari who was convicted after a deeply flawed investigation and trial is an affront to justice, said Amnesty International today.

Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, was executed in a Tehran prison this morning. She had been convicted of killing of a man whom she said tried to sexually abuse her.

“The shocking news that Reyhaneh Jabbari has been executed is deeply disappointing in the extreme. This is another bloody stain on Iran’s human rights record,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Programme.

“Tragically, this case is far from uncommon. Once again Iran has insisted on applying the death penalty despite serious concerns over the fairness of the trial.”

Amnesty International believes that the death penalty is an abhorrent form of punishment and should never be used under any circumstances.

More information:

Next week Iran will hear recommendations from UN member states during it’s UN Universal Periodic Review. Amnesty International is calling on states to use this opportunity to strongly condemn Iran’s use of the death penalty.

Source: Amnesty International, October 25, 2014

Iran hanged Saturday a woman convicted of murdering a former intelligence officer

She claimed the man had tried to sexually assault her

Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, who had been on death row for five years, was put to death at dawn, the official IRNA news agency quoted the Tehran prosecutor’s office as saying.

A message posted on the homepage of a Facebook campaign set up to try to save her noted the “sad news” of her death, adding the words “Rest in Peace” alongside pictures of Jabbari as a young child.

Amnesty International said in a statement issued late Friday that the young Iranian woman, an interior designer, was due to be executed for the 2007 stabbing of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi.

Iranian actors and other prominent figures had appealed for a stay of execution, echoing similar calls in the West.

The US condemned the execution in a statement by state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who said there were "serious concerns with the fairness of the trial and the circumstances surrounding this case".

Iran’s judiciary had given several deadlines for Sarbandi’s family to spare Jabbari under an Islamic sharia law provision that allows a death sentence for murder to be commuted to a prison sentence with the agreement of the victim’s family.

But relatives of Sarbandi, a 47-year-old surgeon who earlier worked for the intelligence ministry, refused to grant clemency, demanding, according to Iranian media, that Jabbari tell “the truth.”

A UN human rights monitor said the killing came in self-defence after Sarbandi tried to sexually abuse Jabbari, and that the condemned woman’s trial in 2009 had been deeply flawed.

But a medical report, prepared for the judiciary and quoted by IRNA in its Saturday dispatch, said Sarbandi was stabbed in the back and that the killing had been premeditated.

Efforts for a commuted jail sentence had intensified in recent weeks but Sarbandi’s family and Jabbari remained at loggerheads over the circumstances of the killing.

According to Jalal Sarbandi, the victim’s eldest son, Jabbari testified that a man was present in the apartment where his father was killed but she had refused to reveal his identity.

He told two of Iran’s reformist daily newspapers, Shargh and Etemad, in April that his family “would not even contemplate mercy until truth is unearthed,” about her alleged accomplice.

Jabbari’s mother was allowed to visit her for one hour on Friday, Amnesty said, a custom that tends to precede executions in Iran.

According to the United Nations, more than 250 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2014.

The UN and international human rights groups have said that Jabbari’s confession was obtained under intense pressure and threats from Iranian prosecutors, and that she should have had a retrial.

Ahmed Shaheed, the UN’s human rights rapporteur on Iran, said in April that Sarbandi had offered to hire Jabbari to redesign his office and took her to an apartment where he sexually assaulted her.

However, Sarbandi’s family dismissed her account and said Jabbari had confessed to buying a knife two days before the killing.

Source: FRANCE24 with AFP, October 25, 2014

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