Iran: Halt Execution of Arab Minority Men

(Beirut) – Iran’s judiciary should stop the executions of four

members of Iran’s Ahwazi Arab minority because of grave violations of due process, Amnesty International, the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and Human Rights Watch said today. The judiciary should order a new trial according to international fair trial standards in which the death penalty is not an option. Family members and Ahwazi Arab rights activists have told human rights groups that the detainees contacted their families on July 16, 2013 and said they feared that authorities were planning to carry out the execution orders any day now.

Supreme Court Upholds Execution Sentence for Four Ahvazis

With the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the death sentences of four young Arab men from Ahvaz on charges of “moharebeh” (enmity with God) and “corruption on earth,” the prisoners are currently in danger of imminent execution at Karoon Prison in Ahvaz.

Iran prepares to execute four human rights activist

Iran continues to violate human rights against its Arabs citizens as seven human right activists from Ahwaz in southern Iran face the death penalty since December 2012 (case no. 901043630040079). Ghazi Abbasi (31), Shehab Abbasi (27), Abdulameer Majdami (33) and Abdulreda Khanafra (26) were all arrested based on unpublished Iranian Intelligence reports according to which the activists are ‘waging war against God and spreading corruption’. The other three, namely Hadi Albokhanfer Nejad, Jassim Mughadem Payam and Sami Jedmawi Nejad are imprisoned for over 3 years and had recently been expelled to Arbedal prison. The former four activists had recently leaked a letter to their families from the inside of Iranian Intelligence prisons calling for help as they are facing both physical and psychological torture on the hands of the Iranian government. According to an official weapons expert (Ali Metri) who was responsible for the prisoners’ case, no bullets were aimed in or at any government institutions and/or its employees and the activists had murdered no one whatsoever. The Iranian regime disregarded Metri’s report and assigned another expert to condemn the activists and justify the sentence.

International organizations at many occasions had condemned the execution of Ahwazi Arabs in Iran, an oppressed and