Death Penalty News

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 28, 2024: Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer and recipient of numerous international awards, including the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, and the European Human Rights Award, has appealed to the President of Singapore to grant clemency to Masoud Rahimi Mehrzad, who is scheduled to be executed tomorrow, 29 November 2024.

The German government has condemned Tehran’s killing of wrestler Navid Afkari A visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to Germany has been abruptly cancelled amid condemnation of Tehran’s execution of a wrestler who had joined anti-government protests . Mr Zarif had been due to meet with his counterparts from Germany, France and Britain on Monday. However, according to the German press, the meeting has been postponed because of the execution of 27-year-old Navid Afkari on Saturday. Iran’s foreign ministry has cited “logistical problems” over the cancellation of the trip. In a statement on Monday, the German government hit out at Tehran once again over its treatment of Afkari, who was accused of murdering a man during the unrest which gripped Iran in 2018. “The federal government strongly condemns this execution, which was carried out despite international protests and requests for suspension,” the German foreign ministry said in a statement. “There were serious doubts about th...

Wrestling Champion Navid Afkari Executed Despite International Outcries Navid Afkari was executed this morning in Adelabad Prison of Shiraz. His family were told that he had been hanged. Despite widespread international outcries in Iran and around the world to stop his execution, the Iranian regime hanged the young Iran protester in a bid to prevent further protests against the regime. Navid Afkari, 27, was a wrestling champion who had never hurt anybody. He was arrested on September 17, 2018 and accused of killing a Basij agent Hasan Turkman during the August 2018 protests in Shiraz. Navid filed a complaint with the judiciary on September 13, 2019, detailing how he was forced to give false confessions while being subjected to “the most severe physical and psychological torture” during nearly 50 days in police detention. “They put a plastic bag over my head and almost suffocated me. Using batons and other hard objects, they beat hard on my hands, abdomen, and legs. They used foul lan...

The award-winning lawyer and defender of human rights Nasrin Sotoudeh, currently imprisoned in Iran, has dedicated her latest award to 4 Iranians on death row. In a message from Tehran's notorious Evin prison, Sotoudeh presented her Human Rights Prize from the German Judges Association (DRB) to Navid Afkari, Amir Hossein Moradi, Mohammad Rajabi, and Saeid Tamjidi.  The four Iranians are facing the death penalty for participating in protest rallies against corruption, economic hardship, skyrocketing prices and mismanagement by Iranian officials. Sotoudeh offered her prize to the four imprisoned protesters during a virtual ceremony, Sotoudeh's husband, Reza Khandan, tweeted last Tuesday. On September 2, the DRB awarded its Human Rights Prize to Sotoudeh, who is currently on a hunger strike in Evin in protest of political prisoners' abysmal conditions. "Nasrin Sotoudeh has become a symbol of the Iranian civil rights movement through her courage and tireless commitment t...

Iran Human Rights (IHR); June 1, 2019: Amirsalar Davoudi, a detained member of the Iranian Bar Association who had represented some of the Iranian political prisoners, is sentenced to 30 years in prison by the Iranian authorities.  He is accused of several charges and under Iranian law, the longest jail-term among the accusation is applicable. In this case, the lawyer should be in jail for 15 years, a sentence issued by the Revolutionary Court for running a channel on Telegram, a social media application. IHR strongly condemns Mr Davoudi’s verdict and urges the international community to react to the systematic crackdown on Iranian lawyers.  IHR’s director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said, “By suppressing and imprisonment of independent lawyers, the Iranian regime has shown that it has no tolerance for the expression of any opinion different from its own. The international community, in particular, the EU, must react immediately and firmly to increase the political ...

Shajarizadeh is a former Iranian political prisoner and women's rights leader who was freed by human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. She is a Senior Fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. The lawyer who saved my life was just sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes in Iran. I first met Nasrin Sotoudeh — an internationally renowned human rights lawyer, and our country’s foremost campaigner for women’s rights and against child executions — when I was being harassed and violently intimidated by Iran’s intelligence services. My crime? I had removed my headscarf in public and put the video online, in protest of Iran’s forced hijab law and the stifling control over women’s bodies and choices that it represents. I finally felt empowered, being part of this White Wednesday movement in Iran, where every Wednesday women would courageously defy the regime in removing their headscarves, or wearing a white shawl in support of those who did, and which qui...

The sentencing of prominent Iranian human rights lawyer and women’s rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes in a new case against her is an outrageous injustice, said Amnesty International today.   The sentence, reported on her husband Reza Khandan’s Facebook page on 11 March, brings her total sentence after two grossly unfair trials to 38 years in prison.  In September 2016, she had been sentenced in her absence to five years in prison in a separate case.  “It is absolutely shocking that Nasrin Sotoudeh is facing nearly four decades in jail and 148 lashes for her peaceful human rights work, including her defence of women protesting against Iran’s degrading forced hijab (veiling) laws. Nasrin Sotoudeh must be released immediately and unconditionally and this obscene sentence quashed without delay,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director.  “Nasrin Soto...

It is unfortunate that the Iranian regime’s human rights violations are attracting little attention from international media outlets. When President Hassan Rouhani was running for re-election, he famously criticized the human rights situation in the country and promised to improve it. But, since he won the election, the president evades discussing it. Based on the latest developments, a report published by Amnesty International last month indicated that human rights abuses have reached a new high. This is happening while some world leaders and governments continue to label the Iranian president as a moderate political figure. Iran’s Penal Code allows executions to be carried out by many different methods, such as hanging, stoning, and firing squad. And, according to the Oslo-based non-governmental organization Iran Human Rights, at least 273 people were executed in Iran in 2018. This made Iran second in the world when it came to the number of people it executed last year, an...

Girls as young as 9-years-old can be sentenced to death in the Islamic Republic, while boys must have reached the age of 15 to receive the death penalty. In an explosive report released last week, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Iran, Javaid Rehman, blasted the Islamic Republic for continuing to execute children in defiance of international law. Records show that at least 61 children have been executed by the regime since 2008. Girls as young as 9-years-old can be sentenced to death in the Islamic Republic, while boys must have reached the age of 15 to receive the death penalty. “At least six child offenders were executed in 2018. All were aged between 14 and 17 at the time of the alleged commission of the crime, and all were executed on the basis of qisas for the crime of murder,” said Rehman. “According to previous reports, 5 child offenders were executed in 2017, 5 in 2016, 7 in 2015 and 13 in 2014.” At least 85 children remain on death row. In the year ...