Death Penalty News

NCRI – A group of resilient political prisoners in Iran’s notorious Evin and Gohardasht prisons have written to the Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi pointing out that at least eight prisoners were executed in Iran while he was visiting Tehran earlier in the week to reestablish trade ties with the regime.  They also warned of a serious risk that other prisoners would be executed in Iran in the coming days since the silence of European officials on the issue of human rights during their visits to Iran only emboldens the regime to step up its abuses. On Saturday, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini arrived in Tehran along with seven EU commissioners for discussions with the regime’s officials on trade and other areas of cooperation. The following is the text of the April 13, 2016 letter by a group of political prisoners in Gohardasht (Rajai-Shahr) and Evin prisons to Italian officials after the execution of eight prisoners in Gohardasht Prison, ...

According to reports from Iran, 5 death-row prisoners from different wards in Isfahan Prison, central Iran, have been transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for their execution. Iran's fundamentalist regime executed 8 prisoners on April 13 in Gohardasht Prison, northwest of Tehran. The prisoners had been transferred to solitary confinement earlier in the week. These executions are taking place while Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi visited Iran in recent days to establishe trade relations between the Iranian regime and Italy. The EU High Representative is expected to visit Iran soon. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on Wednesday that the Iranian regime executed 14 prisoners in various prisons across the country within a 5-day period. Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the 2015 period wrote: "Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to at least 743 the y...

Matteo Renzi and Hassan Rouhani in Tehran on April 12, 2016 The mother of Reyhaneh Jabbari, a young Iranian woman whose execution in October 2014 triggered international condemnation of the mullahs' regime, has written an open letter to the Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi criticizing his trip this week to Tehran and his silence on the appalling human rights abuses taking place in Iran. Reyhaneh Jabbari was executed for killing an intelligence agent of the Iranian regime in self-defense. The following is the text of the impassioned open letter by her mother Mrs. Shole Pakravan to the Prime Minister of Italy on the eve of his trip to Tehran: "The Prime Minister of Italy will travel to Iran tomorrow. He might aim to convey the messages of those who are shocked and disappointed about Iran's executions. He might intend to communicate the Pope's message - which addresses the global abolition of the death penalty - or to say: "Stop Public Executions...