Five Political Prisoners, Four of them Kurdish, Executed at Dawn in Iran

by Nuha Serrac (Kurdistan)

As part of the Iranian regime’s campaign to suppress opposition from ethnic minorities, the executions of Farzad Kamangar, Ali Heydarian, Farhad Vakili, Mehdi Eslamian and Shirin Alam Hooli were carried out in Iran at dawn. Four of the five political prisoners were Kurdish rights activists.

After intense torture followed by solitary confinement for six months and denial of access to medical attention Mehdi Eslamian was sentenced to death in February 2010 on mohareb (enmity to God) charges, acting against national security, membership in a royalist organization and attempt to overthrow the Iranian regime for alleged involvement in a bombing in Shiraz.

The four Kurdish political prisoners are Farzad Kamangar, Ali Heydarian and Farhad Vakili who were sentenced to death on February 25, 2008 and Shirin Alam Hooli who was sentenced on December 19, 2009.

Farzad Kamangar a Kurdish teacher was sentenced to death for alleged ties to the PKK after being held incommunicado for months. In his trial, which lasted seven minutes, neither Kamangar or his lawyer were allowed to speak. Ali Heyderian and Farhad Vakili of Sanandaj were arrested in July 2006 in Tehran alongside Farzad Kamangar and sentenced with him to death for taking up arms against the state for alleged membership in the PKK.

Shirin Alam Hooli was imprisoned in Evin prison and has undergone severe torture at the hands of her interrogators and was pressured to make a televised confession, which she refused to do. She was sentenced to death on mohareb charges.

Following these executions, 15 Kurdish political prisoners remain on death row in Iran: Zeinab Jalalian, Habibollah Latifi, Shirkou Maarefi, Jamal Mohammadi, Sami Hosseini, Rostam Arkia, Rashid Akhkandi, Hossein Khazri, Mostafa Salimi, Anvar Rostami, Mohammad Amin Agoushi, Iraj Mohammadi, Ahmad Pouladkhani, Hasan Talei and Habibollah Golpalipour.

Cross-posted on the Alliance for Kurdish Rights.