The Human Rights Activists in Iran organization has published a list of 54 “political and security” prisoners sentenced to death. According to the report, at least 24 individuals have been sentenced to execution by the Revolutionary and Criminal Courts of Tehran, while 20 others have received the same sentence in courts in the provinces of Khuzestan, Khorasan Razavi, West Azerbaijan, Sistan and Baluchestan, and Kurdistan.
This report, which was released on Monday, January 6, states that the execution sentences for these “political and security” prisoners have been upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court, and their cases have been transferred to the execution branch for enforcement.
The HRANA news agency, the media arm of this human rights organization, has listed the names of the prisoners sentenced to death, including “Varisheh Moradi, Pakhshan Azizi, Abolhassan Montazer, Vahid Bani-Amrian, Pouya Ghobadi Biston, Babak Alipour, Seyed Mohammad Taghavi Sang-Dehi, Akbar Daneshvarkar, Mohammad Amin Mahdavi Shayesteh, Saman Mohammadi Khiyareh, Ali Obeidavi, Malek Davarshenas, Malek Ali Fadaei-Nasab, Taj Mohammad Khormal, Abdolhakim Azim Gorgij, Abdolrahman Gorgij, Isa Eidmohammadi, Farhad Shakeri, Habib Dris, Salem Mousavi, Adnan Ghabishavi, Moein Khonafari, Mohammad Reza Moghadam, Ali Mojadam, Mohammad Mehdi Soleimani (Mohammad Mehdi-S), Yousef Ahmadi, Ahmad Reza Jalali, Abbas Deris, Mohammad Javad Vafaei Thani, Azam Narouei, Mohammad Zeinaldini, Farshid Hassan Zehi, Shahriar Bayat, Shahin Vosaf, Naser Bakrzadeh, Mehrab (Mehram) Abdollahzadeh, Hatem Özdemir, Hamid Hosseinnezhad Heidaranlou, Mehdi Hassani, Behrouz Ehsani, Rasoul Ahmad Mohammad, Azad Shojaei, Edris Ali, Alireza Barmarz Pournak, Hossein Nemati, Navid Najaran, Amir Mohammad Khosh-Eghbal, Alireza Kafaee, Milad Armon, Soleiman Shahbakhsh, Abdolrahim Ghanbar Zehi, Gorgij Abdolghani Shahbakhsh, Eido Shahbakhsh, and Abbas Korkor(Mojahed Korkor).”
The report by the Human Rights Activists in Iran organization emphasizes that many of these prisoners have been “denied the right to a fair trial” and have faced issues such as “limited or no access to legal representation and a lack of transparency in the judicial process.” It states that “some of them were not allowed to choose their lawyers, and even those who had appointed attorneys were prevented by judicial authorities from meeting with them.”
According to the report, “A significant number of these prisoners have denied the charges against them and were sentenced to death through opaque and unjust proceedings.” Some of them are “currently held in solitary confinement, awaiting execution.”
The majority of the execution sentences for these 54 prisoners were issued based on the charge of “Baghy,” which in legal terms refers to “armed rebellion or uprising against the government.”
The report highlights the “prominent role” of Abolqasem Salavati, the head of Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, and Iman Afshari, the head of Branch 26 of the same court, in issuing these death sentences. (Both judges have been subjected to international sanctions because of their human rights violations.) It also states that Branch 3 of the Urmia Revolutionary Court has sentenced several prisoners, “including border couriers (Kolbars),” to death on charges of “espionage for Israel.”
In some cases, including those of Mojahed Korkorand Hatem Özdemir, after the regime’s Supreme Court overturned their death sentences, parallel branches of the court reissued execution rulings against the defendants.
Additionally, Mohammad Javad Vafaei Thani, a protester sentenced to death because of his support for the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), has been given a death sentence for the third time in his judicial process.
HRANA stresses that the Iranian regime “instrumentalizes” espionage charges to suppress political dissidents, and due to the “lack of transparency in details and judicial proceedings,” the issued sentences are always met with skepticism.
According to this human rights organization, “lawyers of some of these prisoners have repeatedly stated that their clients were sentenced to death through unfair judicial processes that did not meet the standards of a fair trial.”
Various domestic and international sources have repeatedly emphasized that the issuance and enforcement of death sentences by the Iranian regime serve the purpose of “spreading fear and intimidation.”
