Iran Focus: Tehran, May 08 – Iran hanged six men in a prison in the city of Karaj, west of the capital, on Saturday.
Iran Focus
Tehran, May 08 – Iran hanged six men in a prison in the city of Karaj, west of the capital, on Saturday.
The Tehran public prosecutor’s office put out a statement identifying the six as Arsalan Asadi, Rahman Biabani, Mohammad Ali Fakhri, Abbas Geravand, Saeed Mikaeli, and Parviz Taqi-Zadeh.
All six were hanged in Qezel-Hesar Prison. They were accused of drug trafficking.
Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on bogus charges such as armed robbery and drug trafficking.
Amnesty International says Iran carried out the highest number of executions in 2009 after China. The human rights watchdog warned last week that another political prisoner, Jaafar Kazemi, 47, was at imminent risk of execution for participating in anti-government demonstrations last year and for being in contact with the main Iranian opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
This week, Amnesty urged the Iranian authorities to reveal how many Afghan nationals it was holding on death row amid reports 45 Afghans may have been executed in Iran in recent weeks.
