Iranian Lawmaker Says Executions ‘A Lesson’ For Dissidents

An Iranian lawmaker says the execution of four Kurdish prisoners, who were hanged in Iran on Monday is a lesson to anyone who wants to overthrow the regime.

“These executions are a lesson for anyone who wants to stand against the will of the Iranian nation because the Iranian nation will punish them for their deeds,” Mehdi Sa’adati, a member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee told the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) Monday.

Iran’s parliament is controlled by hardliners, many of whom come from the ranks of the Revolutionary Guards, and have fully supported security and intelligence agencies in their crackdown on dissent.

The four prisoners -- Pejman Fatehi, Mohsen Mazloum, Mohammad (Hazhir) Faramarzi and Wafa Azarbar – who were hanged at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, near Tehran, were accused of planning to blow up a defense ministry facility in Najafabad, Esfahan Province in July 2022. They were accused of being Israeli agents.

“Cooperation with Mossad has no outcome other than being executed. This is the Iranian nation’s demand,” he added.

Iranian authorities claim that the four young men were apprehended in a village in Iran’s West Azarbaijan Province, just days before they were set to execute their planned operation. They further allege that these individuals received training from Israel's Mossad in three African countries, including Tanzania, where they practiced using similar structures as target simulations.

The prisoners, who belonged to the Kurdish Komala party, were allegedly forced into making false self-incriminating confessions, which the state television (IRIB) aired in October 2022, and were tried behind closed doors without due process.

Their lawyer, Masoud Shamsnejad, has said that he was not allowed to see the case files and the Supreme Court turned down his request for a retrial for lack of submission of court documents.

The executions have enraged many Iranians, particularly those in Kurdish areas, where they went on a general strike on Tuesday. Seven Kurdish human rights organizations including Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, as well the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan called for the general strike in the Kurdish areas of Iran in protest to the executions and to draw the attention of the international community to the worrying human rights situation in Iran's Kurdish areas.

“I assure that Kurdistan will not remain silent in the face of the killing of its children,” Abdullah Mohtadi, secretary general of the Komala Party, tweeted Monday.

Rights organizations have also warned that Iran’s Supreme Court has confirmed the death sentence passed on six other Kurdish prisoners who will be in imminent danger of execution.

Iran International has received reports about total or partial internet disruptions in some areas of Iran's Kordestan Province.

Amnesty International said in a tweet on Monday that it was horrified by the arbitrary execution of the four Kurdish dissidents “after a grossly unfair secret trial”.

“Their execution comes amid an alarming spike in executions by Iran's authorities, including as tool of political repression against protesters, dissidents & oppressed ethnic minorities, particularly Kurds & Baluchis, who are disproportionately targeted by the death penalty,” Amnesty said while urging the international community to condemn the Islamic Republic’s “killing spree and intensified use of the death penalty as a tool of repression.”

Rights organizations and activists have called on Nada Al-Nashif, the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, to cancel her visit to Tehran from 2 to 5 February to investigate executions and women's rights violations in protest to the regime’s executions.

“The timing of this visit, the context in which it would take place and its modalities raise very serious concerns. We respectfully urge you to hear these concerns and to reconsider the opportunity, timing and modalities of this visit,” Article 19, an international human rights organization, said in an open letter addressed to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and Al-Nashif.

Source: iranintl.com, Maryam Sinaiee, January 30, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Facebook | Telegram | Contact Us

SUPPORT DEATH PENALTY NEWS

Buy Me a Coffee!

Tennessee | Questions Raised About the Doctor Who Was Overseeing Tony Caruthers’ Execution

Mark Fowler, according to a deposition, had not placed a central line in a patient for more than a decade when he attempted to put one in Carruthers Around 11 a.m. Thursday morning in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, a medical doctor stepped in and attempted to place a central IV line in Tony Carruthers’ chest. By that point, the prison staff had spent some 30 minutes trying unsuccessfully to insert a backup IV line that would allow them to proceed with the lethal injection. According to Carruthers’ attorney Maria DeLiberato, who was in the room, after asking a staff member to attempt inserting a line through Carruthers’ jugular vein, the doctor moved on to the central line, which is identified as the last resort in Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol .

EU GSP+ Reform: Will Brussels Finally Enforce Its Own Conditions on Pakistan?

The EU has tightened the rules governing GSP+ trade preferences, but Pakistan’s record raises a harder question: whether Brussels is prepared to suspend market access when a major beneficiary fails to demonstrate sustained compliance with human rights, labour and governance obligations. The European Union has formally adopted revised rules for its Generalised Scheme of Preferences, strengthening the conditions attached to preferential market access for developing countries. The new framework will apply from 1 January 2027 and is intended to tighten monitoring, widen the list of international conventions, and make suspension of benefits easier in cases of serious violations.

Florida executes Richard Knight

Man convicted of killing a woman and her 4-year-old daughter is executed in Florida A Florida man convicted of fatally stabbing his cousin’s girlfriend and the couple’s 4-year-old daughter was put to death Thursday evening, becoming the 7th person executed by the state this year. Richard Knight, 47, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Knight was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the June 2002 killings of Odessia Stephens and her daughter, Hanessia Mullings. The curtain of the death chamber went up promptly at the scheduled 6:00 p.m. execution time. Knight was already strapped down with his arms extended and an IV line in place.

Iran executes Esma Zarei in Ardabil Prison after she gave birth in custody

Hengaw – Saturday, May 23, 2026. Iranian authorities have executed Esma Zarei, a 28-year-old Turkish woman from Parsabad in Ardabil Province, who had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder” in connection with the killing of her husband. She is the sixth woman executed in Iran since the beginning of 2026. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Zarei was executed at dawn on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Ardabil Central Prison. She had been sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) after being convicted of her husband’s murder.

Tennessee fails to execute Tony Carruthers after IV difficulties. State won't try again for a year

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee officials on Thursday called off the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering three people in 1994, after his executioners tried and failed for over an hour to establish an intravenous line. Gov. Bill Lee announced soon afterward that the state would not try again for at least a year. In a written statement, the Tennessee Department of Corrections said medical personnel had quickly established a primary IV line but were unable to find a suitable vein for a backup line as required by the state’s execution protocol. Efforts to insert a central line also failed, and officials called off the execution.

Arizona executes Leroy McGill

Arizona executes inmate who set couple on fire in 'horrific attack' Arizona has executed Leroy McGill for setting 21-year-old Charles Perez and his 24-year-old girlfriend on fire. Perez died the next day and Perez survived with severe burn injuries. Arizona has executed a death row inmate for setting 2 people on fire more than 20 years ago, killing 1 of them and changing the other's life forever. The state executed Leroy McGill, 63, by lethal injection on Wednesday, May 20, for the 2002 murder of 21-year-old Charles Perez. McGill set Perez and his girlfriend on fire after they accused him of theft, court records say. Perez died of his injuries the next day while his girlfriend survived with severe burns.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Florida: The Daily Routine of Death Row Inmates

The breakfast carts rattle through the concrete prison at about 5:30 am and as they approach Death Row the first sounds of morning repeat the last sounds of night - remote controlled locks clanging open and clunking closed, electric gates whirring, heavy metal doors crashing shut, voices wailing, klaxons blaring. A maximum security prison has no soft or delicate sounds. At the end of each corridor of death row cells a guard opens a heavy door of steel bars and a prison trusty pushes a breakfast cart inside. The door closes behind him and when it locks a second door opens and admits the trusty to the wing. He steers his cart along the wing stopping at each cell to pass a tray of powdered eggs and lukewarm grits through a small slot on the bars. Food is prepared by prison staff and transported in insulated carts to the cells. The food carts are full of cockroaches, the food is often undercooked or just rotten and is served on Styrofoam plates with a plastic "spork" - fork/spoon...

Iraq: German schoolgirl, 17, turned jihadi bride escapes death penalty and is jailed for six years

GERMAN Jihadi bride Linda Wenzel has been jailed for six years in Baghdad for her role as an Islamic enforcer with terror group ISIS. Wenzel, 17, who last year sobbed on TV “I have ruined my life,” could have faced the death penalty. German media reported that a German embassy representative in Iraq was in court yesterday to witness her sentencing. She received five years for joining IS and one year for entering Iraq illegally. Wenzel was found in the rubble of IS stronghold Mosul back in the summer of 2017. Charges were laid against her and three other German women captured with her. Schoolgirl Wenzel fled to Turkey then into Syria last year from her hometown of Pulsnitz in eastern Germany after being groomed online by a Chechen IS fighter who she married. He was killed in the savage fighting for Mosul while she was employed by the terror group enforcing the strict Islamic dress code on women in the city. She burst into tears after her capture and said s...

New Mississippi billboard warns criminals: ‘Firing squad is legal’

DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. (WREG) — A billboard standing on Interstate 55 southbound as you cross the Tennessee state line and enter Mississippi from Memphis is sending a grim message to those coming into the state. DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton recently announced the new billboard campaign, which features the sign reading, “WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WHERE THE FIRING SQUAD IS LEGAL. THINK TWICE.” It references Mississippi’s law permitting execution by firing squad under certain circumstances for inmates sentenced to death. Barton says this campaign is aimed at deterring violent crime and sends a direct message to criminals entering Mississippi.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog