Letter to EU by International Organisations: Save Ahmadreza Djalali

In a joint letter to the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, ten international rights organisations demand immediate action to save the life of Ahmadreza Djalali. The full text of the letter and list of signatories are as follows:

H. E. Josep Borrell

High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy,

Vice-President of the European Commission

Rue de la Loi / Wetstraat 200 – 1049 Brussels

Rome, 25/11/2020

Dear HR/VP Josep Borrell,

We are writing to you to express our deep concern for Ahmadreza Djalali’s case.

We have just learned that Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali had been transferred to solitary confinement and he will be soon transferred to Rajai Shahr Prison where his death sentence is to be carried out.

Dr. Djalali is an Iranian-Swedish researcher affiliated with Sweden’s Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and Italy’s University of Eastern Piedmont in Novara, where he carried out research on improving hospitals’ emergency responses to armed terrorism and radiological, chemical and biological threats. He is internationally esteemed and regularly collaborates with leading European research institutes. Dr. Djalali´s contribution is undeniable in this field of research. His innovative research has been conducted in multicultural environments and in collaboration with colleagues and institutions in several countries. His studies have led to the publication of more than forty scientific papers with the purpose of improving the emergency response not only in his own country, Iran, but also in Europe.

Dr. Djalali was arrested in Iran in April 2016 and later convicted of espionage, with no material evidence provided, following a secret and hasty process led by Iran’s revolutionary court and without allowing any defence submission.

Dr. Djalali spent a period of long detention, with initially total and later partial isolation in Evin prison. For the entire period of imprisonment he was subjected to such heavy psychological torture, that he was forced, on two occasions, to record false confessions, reading what was prepared by the interrogators. Following a trial that took place behind closed doors and in violation of any minimum standard of legality, on 21 October 2017, he was sentenced to death for “corruption on earth” (Efsad-e fel-arz).

According to reports by the international scientific weekly journal Nature (23 October 2017), a source close to Djalali revealed, through a document presented as a literal transcription of a handwritten text produced by Djalali inside Evin prison, that in 2014 he was approached by agents of the Iranian military intelligence that asked him to collect information on Western chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear sites, as well as on critical infrastructures and counter-terrorism operational plans. The document states that Djalali believes he was arrested for refusing to spy for the Iranian intelligence service.

We, the signatories of this appeal, ask the EU to take an immediate action in order to obtain the suspension of the death sentence which, in a short time, can end the life of an innocent man, and to ensure that Ahmadreza Djalali can get access to prompt and appropriate medical care.

Thank you for your attention and response.

Sincerely,

FIDU – Federazione Italiana Diritti Umani

Associazione Luca Coscioni per la libertà di ricerca scientifica

CRIMEDIM – Research Center in Emergency and Disaster Medicine (Università del Piemonte Orientale)

ECPM – Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort

Eumans!

Global Committee for the Rule of Law "Marco Pannella"

Iran Human Rights

Nessuno Tocchi Caino / Hands Off Cain

Scholars at Risk Italy (SAR Italia)

Science for Democracy

This appeal is also supported by:

Sen. Prof. Elena Cattaneo

Amb. Giulio Maria Terzi di Sant’Agata, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy

Prof. Frederick Burkle. Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University

Prof. Gregory Ciottone, President of WADEM – World Association of Disaster and Emergency Medicine

Prof. Francesco Della Corte, Director of CRIMEDIM

Source: iranhr.net, Staff, November 26, 2020

🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

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

'No Warning': The Death Penalty In Japan

Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite criticism over how it is carried out. Tokyo: Capital punishment in Japan is under scrutiny again after the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamada, was awarded $1.4 million in compensation this week following his acquittal last year in a retrial. Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite international criticism over how it is carried out.

A second South Carolina death row inmate chooses execution by firing squad

Columbia, S.C. — A South Carolina death row inmate on Friday chose execution by firing squad, just five weeks after the state carried out its first death by bullets. Mikal Mahdi, who pleaded guilty to murder for killing a police officer in 2004, is scheduled to be executed April 11. Mahdi, 41, had the choice of dying by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair. He will be the first inmate to be executed in the state since Brad Sigmon chose to be shot to death on March 7. A doctor pronounced Sigmon dead less than three minutes after three bullets tore into his heart.

Louisiana's First Nitrogen Execution Reflects Broader Method Shift

Facing imminent execution by lethal gas earlier this week, Jessie Hoffman Jr. — a Louisiana man convicted of abducting, raping and murdering a 28-year-old woman in 1996 — went to court with a request: Please allow me to be shot instead. In a petition filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on March 16 seeking a stay of his execution by nitrogen hypoxia, a protocol that had yet to be tested in the state, Hoffman requested execution by firing squad as an alternative.

South Carolina | Spiritual adviser of condemned inmate: 'We're more than the worst thing we've done'

(RNS) — When 67-year-old Brad Sigmon was put to death on March 7 in South Carolina for the murder of his then-girlfriend's parents, it was the first time in 15 years that an execution in the United States had been carried out by a firing squad. United Methodist minister Hillary Taylor, Sigmon's spiritual adviser since 2020, said the multifaceted, months long effort to save Sigmon's life, and to provide emotional and spiritual support for his legal team, and the aftermath of his execution has been a "whirlwind" said Taylor, the director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

USA | Federal death penalty possible for Mexican cartel boss behind 1985 DEA agent killing

Rafael Caro Quintero, extradited from Mexico in 2022, appeared in Brooklyn court as feds weigh capital charges for the torture and murder of Agent Enrique Camarena NEW YORK — The death penalty is on the table for notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, the so-called “narco of narcos” who orchestrated the torture and murder of a DEA agent in 1985, according to federal prosecutors. “It is a possibility. The decision has not yet been made, but it is going through the process,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Saritha Komatireddy said in Brooklyn Federal Court Wednesday.

Inside Florida's Death Row: A dark cloud over the Sunshine State

Florida's death penalty system has faced numerous criticisms and controversies over the years - from execution methods to the treatment of Death Row inmates The Sunshine State remains steadfast in its enforcement of capital punishment, upholding a complex system that has developed since its reinstatement in 1976. Florida's contemporary death penalty era kicked off in 1972 following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia , which temporarily put a stop to executions across the country. Swiftly amending its laws, Florida saw the Supreme Court affirm the constitutionality of the death penalty in 1976's Gregg v. Georgia case.

Bangladesh | Botswana Woman Executed for Drug Trafficking

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Lesedi Molapisi, a Botswana national convicted of drug trafficking, was executed in Bangladesh on Friday, 21 March 2025. The 31-year-old was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail after exhausting all legal avenues to appeal her death sentence. Molapisi was arrested in January 2023 upon arrival at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, where customs officials discovered 3.1 kilograms of heroin hidden in her luggage. Following a trial under Bangladesh’s Narcotics Control Act, she was sentenced to death in May 2024. Her execution was initially delayed due to political unrest in the country but was carried out last week.

Execution date set for prisoner transferred to Oklahoma to face death penalty

An inmate who was transferred to Oklahoma last month to face the death penalty now has an execution date. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, is scheduled to die on June 12 for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set the execution date. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board has a tentative date of May 7 for Hanson’s clemency hearing, executive director Tom Bates said.

Oklahoma executes Wendell Grissom

Grissom used some of his last words on Earth to apologize to everyone he hurt and said that he prays they can find forgiveness for their own sake. As for his execution, he said it was a mercy. Oklahoma executed Wendell Arden Grissom on Thursday for the murder of 23-year-old Amber Matthews in front of her best friend’s two young daughters in 2005. Grissom, 56, was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. local time, becoming the first inmate to be put to death by the state in 2025 and the ninth in the United States this year.

564 People On Death Row In India, Highest Since The Turn Of The Century

In 90% of of all death penalty sentences in 2024, trial courts imposed sentences in the absence of adequate information about the accused, finds a recent report Bengaluru: Following the uproar and the widespread protests after the August 2024 rape and murder of a medical professional in Kolkata’s RG Kar hospital, there were demands for death penalty for the accused. The state government passed the Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2024 (awaiting presidential assent) which included mandatory death sentence for rape which results in death of the victim or if the victim is left in a vegetative state, despite such a mandatory sentence being unconstitutional.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog