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Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

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A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

Iran | The case of Jamshid Sharmahd. The kidnapping of Iranian dissidents is becoming a regular occurrence.

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Rouhani's Iran
Failure by the international community to respond adequately to these unlawful acts will lead to its normalisation/legitimisation. 

The kidnapping of Jamshid Sharmahd, an Iranian-German citizen from neighbouring soil is the latest case in this trend. He has been accused by state media outlets of being involved in several "terrorist operations". 

Noting that there are no standards of a fair trial in the Islamic Republic, that the state’s interrogation apparatus is based on extracting false confessions under torture and that the death penalty is widely used, Iran Human Rights calls on the international community to intervene to save the life Sharmahd and to prevent further kidnappings of dissidents.

IHR Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said: "The German government has a responsibility to protect Jamshid Sharmahd’s life, like its other citizens and must take every necessary step to save his life. If Jamshid Sharmahd has committed any crimes, he deserves the right to due process and a fair trial in a jurisdiction free of torture and execution. Should state kidnappings go unpunished, we will see an increase in such unlawful acts, which are contrary to international laws.” On August 1, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence issued a statement announcing the arrest of Jamshid Sharmahd, "the head of Tondar group, following a complex operation."

Tondar Media is the broadcasting platform for “Kingdom Assembly of Iran”, which is considered an opposition group to the Islamic Republic. Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence has called the assembly a “terrorist” organisation. 

In a television program aired on Saturday, August 1st, the Minister of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Alavi, claimed that Sharmahd had been arrested in Iran.

However, in an interview with Iran International TV, Jamshid Sharmahd's children said that their father had been abducted in the United Arab Emirates. 

Jamshid Sharmahd is a German citizen who has lived in the United States for some time. 

Arresting political dissidents outside of Iran is not unprecedented. Ruhollah Zam, the director of Amad News Telegram channel, was arrested in Iraq in October 2019 and transported to Iran. A political refugee living in France, he was recently sentenced to death in the court of the first instance.

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, August 4, 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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