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Iranian authorities are using executions as a "tool of fear," especially against minorities, dissidents and foreign nationals, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday.
This organization highlighted a recent increase in capital punishments against these groups, underlining that there are uncontrolled violations of judicial processes in the awarding of punishments.
According to the Iranian Human Rights Group, at least 651 people have been executed in Iran in the first 10 months of this year – 166 of them in October alone. HRH mentioned the case of Kurdish political prisoner, Varisheh Moradi, who was sentenced to death by Iran's revolutionary court in Tehran on November 10, under charges of "armed insurrection against the state".
Moradi, a member of the East Kurdistan Free Women's Association, was arrested in the city of Sanandaj in Kurdistan Province in August last year and held for five months in solitary confinement at the notorious Evin prison, where she was tortured. Her family has not been allowed to visit her since May, according to the group.
Moradi was not allowed to defend herself and the judge did not allow her lawyers to defend her in court, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network reported. "Iranian authorities use the death penalty as a tool of fear, especially targeting ethnic minorities and political dissidents after unfair trials," said Nahid Naghshbandi of HRU. "This brutal tactic is intended to suppress any opposition to the autocratic Government through intimidation," she added. Five other Kurdish men have been sentenced to death in recent weeks on charges of "spying for Israel," HRH said.
Four Arab prisoners from Ahvaz, in Khuzestan Province, are at risk of immediate execution after being sentenced to death by a revolutionary court, along with two other individuals, for their alleged involvement in the murders of two Basij members, a law enforcement officer and a soldier.
The four prisoners – Ali Majdam, Moein Khonafri, Mohammadreza Moghadam and Adnan Gheibshavi (Musavi) – were arrested in 2017 and 2018, according to human rights groups. Afghan nationals in Iran in particular have been targeted for death sentences, HRH said, adding that, according to human rights groups, at least 49 Afghan nationals have been executed in Iran this year, 13 in the past month alone. Mai Sato, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, has also expressed her concern about the "alarming" increase in the number of executions.
"In August 2024 alone, at least 93 people were executed, nearly half related to drug law violations," Sato said on Nov. 1./rel/
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