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Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the ​“West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993

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On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 

Amnesty calls on Iran to ‘reveal fate' of four death row prisoners

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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Human rights monitor Amnesty International on Tuesday  called on Iranian authorities to “immediately” reveal the  truth about the fate and location of four death row prisoners from various minority groups.

Hossein Silawi, Ali Khasraji, Naser Khafajian, and Hedayat Abdollahpour have all been transferred to “unknown locations,” according to the organization. 

Abdollahpour is a Kurdish Iranian prisoner, while the other three are from Iran’s Ahwazi Arab minority.

“The authorities’ refusal to provide the families of the men with  information has sparked fears that they are at risk of being tortured  or executed in secret,” an Amnesty report read.

Silawi, Khasraji, and Khafajian  disappeared on March 31, while Abdollahpour is said to have disappeared on Saturday.

All four prisoners were sentenced to death following an “unfair trial” on charges “taking up arms against the state,” Amnesty added.

Abdollahpour was arrested on August 3, 2016 after he was accused of  having ties with the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), and  attacking Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on June 14, 2016.

The other three were accused of attacking a police station in Ahvaz on 14 May 2017, which resulted in the death of two police officers.

According to information received by Amnesty International, Iran has executed more than 92 people since January.

“A disproportionate number of those executed since January were members of Iran’s Kurdish minority,” the Amnesty report added.

Tens of thousands of political prisoners are jailed in Iran over various charges including advocating for democracy and promoting  women’s or workers’ rights.

Amid growing fears of the outbreak of the coronavirus, the UN has already urged Iran to include political prisoners in its temporary release of inmates.  

Ethnic minority groups including Kurds and Azeris are disproportionately detained and more harshly sentenced for acts of  political dissidence, according to a July 2019 report from the United  Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran. 

Since the re-imposition of US sanctions and the heightening of  tensions, authorities in Iran have started tightening the noose on  labor activists, journalists, satirists, environmentalists, anti-death  penalty campaigners, and researchers, who have been detained in  droves, with some sentenced in trials whose fairness has been  questioned.

Source: rudaw.net, Staff, May 14, 2020


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Iran
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