Iran | New Wave of Political Prisoner Death Sentences

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 18, 2024: At the same time as the drastic execution hike in Iran, a new wave of death sentences have been issued against at least eight protesters and political prisoners in the past week. Furthermore, the death sentences of four Baluch political prisoners have been sent for implementation.

Iran Human Rights considers the recent wave of death sentences to be a warning against hasty and imminent implementation of their executions with the aim of instilling societal fear, and calls on the people of Iran and the international community to prevent further death sentences and executions with appropriate reactions.

The organisation also warns that more executions will be carried out in the shadow of the media’s diverted attention to domestic and international crises. It is therefore crucial for the media and public to pay particularly close attention to human rights violations, particularly the death penalty.

IHRNGO Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: "The relatively low political cost of executing hundreds of ordinary crime prisoners in the past months has prompted the authorities to intensify the execution of protesters and political prisoners.” He added: “The Islamic Republic, which is going through the most critical period of its rule, can only survive by resorting to repression and executions. Raising the political cost through popular protests, civil society campaigns and a stronger response from the international community can stop the state's execution machine. In order to prevent large-scale executions, an appropriate reaction must be shown to each execution."

On 13 November, six “Woman, Life, Freedom” protesters were sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for participation in murder by Branch 13 of the Tehran Criminal Court. In a case known as Ekbatan (neighbourhood in Tehran where it took place), Milad Armoun, Alireza Kafayi, Amir Mohammad Khosheghbal, Navid Najaran, Hossein Nemati and Alireza Barmazpournak are accused of injuring an IRGC member named Arman Aliverdi on 26 October 2022 which led to his death two days later. According to one of their lawyers, the “the head of the branch disagreed with this ruling and issued a minority vote.” Some of the defendants in the case were also indicted for charges of moharebeh (enmity against god) by the Revolutionary Court.

At least four of the defendants’ torture-tainted confessions were televised prior to any legal proceedings and around a dozen defendants were forced to participate in a reconstruction of the crime scene in December 2022. They are currently held in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj.

Furthermore, Kurdish political prisoner Varisheh Moradi was sentenced to death for charges of baghy (armed rebellion) by Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court presided over by “death judge” Salavati on 10 November 2024. She was arrested in Sanandaj on 1 August 2023 and subsequently transferred to Evin Prison where she is still held.

Varisheh is the third female political prisoner to receive the death penalty for baghy charges in 2024. In July, Sharifeh Mohammadi was sentenced to death by Branch One of the Rasht Revolutionary Court and Pakhshan Azizi received her sentence from Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court.

On 17 November, state media reported that a man only named as “Mohammad Mehdi S” was sentenced to qisas for the murder of IRGC member Rasoul Doustmohammadi, 30 months imprisonment and diya (blood money) for the injury of another IRGC member and another 30 months and 74 lashes for the possession of inflammable and incendiary materials” by the Mashhad Criminal Court. The alleged offences took place in Mashhad in the early days of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” nationwide protests. The unidentified protester was arrested on 23 September 2022 and alleged to have “confessed” to the charges and is held in Mashhad Central (Vakil Abad) Prison.

Four Baluch political prisoners named Eido Shehbakhsh, Abdolghani Shehbakhsh, Abdolrahim Ghanbarzehi and Soleiman Shehbakhsh were sentenced to death for charges of baghy for “forming and membership in anti-revolution terrorist groups” by Branch 28 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court on 4 February 2023. Their sentences were subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court and sent for implementation in late October.

Eido and Abdolghani who are the first defendants in the case, were previously cleared of the charges and released but later rearrested by the IRGC Intelligence Organisation. Soleiman Shehbakhsh, the fourth defendant in the case, is reported to have been 12 years old at the time of arrest. All four men are reported to have been severely tortured to extract false self-incriminating confessions. They are currently held in Ghezel Hesar Prison.

The four Baluch men and Varshieh Moradi are members of the “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” abolitionist movement which began in response to the weekly group executions in Iranian prisons and now takes place in 25 prisons across the country.

It is important to note that death penalty cases against political prisoners are processed without due process and fair trial rights in courts that are under the influence of security institutions, and torture-tainted forced confessions are used as the primary method of proving the defendants’ guilt.

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, November 18, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Instagram | Telegram | Contact Us

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

— Oscar Wilde

Comments

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Japan: Capital punishment for a minor

Death chamber at Tokyo Detention Center The Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the death sentence given in a lay judge trial to a 24-year-old man for murders he committed when he was a minor raises questions about the lay judge trial system and capital punishment. These include whether the lay judges correctly understood the spirit of the Juvenile Law in sentencing the defendant to death. It was the 1st death sentence handed down on a minor in a lay judge trial. The murders took place in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, in 2010 when Yutaro Chiba was 18 - meaning he fell under the purview of the Juvenile Law. Chiba was convicted of entering his ex-girlfriend's house and stabbing to death the girl's sister and a female friend of the girl with a butcher knife, seriously injuring a male friend of the sister and abducting the girl. Prosecutors said Chiba killed the victims because they were trying to separate him and his former girlfriend. Since Chiba pleaded n...

Texas: The inmates who refused to die quietly and had to be gassed out of their cells before execution

Former crime reporter Michelle Lyons, who witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, reveals the desperate acts of death row prisoners who refused to accept their fate After spending years or often decades locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day, most Death Row inmates go willingly to their executions. However, some refuse to die quietly - with officers forced to gas them out of cells, strap up their heads and even give chase across prison grounds. Michelle Lyons, who has witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, exclusively tells Sun Online how certain inmates "fight like hell" in their last moments. On most occasions, Michelle watched from the witness area, with the killers already on the gurney - the stretcher where they'd be given a lethal injection. Seven prisoners once tried to escape from the Row in Huntsville - with one shoving magazines and newspapers under his clothes to help him roll over razor-wire fences. Others have had to b...

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

Idaho | Death row prisoners sue over state's new firing squad

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Days after Idaho made the switch to a firing squad for executions, two Idaho death row prisoners next in line to be put to death sued the state prison system, saying its director withheld information about how she settled on the specifics for carrying out the method. Attorneys for prisoners Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto filed suit this week in state district court against Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick. In the filing, they called her approval of an updated standard operating procedure for the firing squad and lethal injection as a backup method “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion and in excess of the statutory authority of the agency.”

Florida executes Dennis Sochor

Man, 74, becomes oldest inmate executed in Florida in state’s 10th lethal injection this year Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was 1 of 3 older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state. Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.

Oldest inmate set to be executed in Florida will face strict spending limit for final meal

An entire category of food is also off-limits for final meal requests in Florida Florida is currently preparing to execute its oldest inmate later today (July 14), a 74-year-old convicted murderer who has been on death row since the 1980s—but his final meal will be limited by a strict budget. Dennis Sochor is scheduled to be put to death later today, making history as the oldest inmate to ever be executed in the state. The criminal, who has been on death row for nearly 40 years, will be administered the lethal three-drug injection, with the process due to begin at around 6pm.

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog