Fear of Imminent Executions

Amnesty International

Fear of Imminent Execution
IRAN Shahrbano Nedam (f), aged 50
Tayebeh Hojjati (f) Akram (f), aged 35 ]
Soheila (f), aged 28 ] full names not known to Amnesty International
Zahra (f), aged 30 ]
According to the newspaper E’temad, at least two women are scheduled to be executed in Evin Prison in Tehran on 5 March. Three others are at risk of imminent execution. All except one of the women were convicted of murdering their husbands. The Head of the Judiciary has the power to order a suspension of their executions at this stage.Shahrbano Nedam was convicted of killing her husband 11 years ago. She denies killing him, but said she initially confessed to the murder, for fear that her son would be accused instead. Shahrbano Nedam claims her husband committed suicide. A forensic examination reportedly concluded that this was a possibility.

Read more!

More Public Execution in Iran

Warning: Graphic




3men executed in Saveh-Iran on 08/19/2007 morning

A criminal regime struggling to survive, "For around two years now the Islamic Republic government has stepped up the execution and torturing of political prisoners and dissidents on the pretext of security. The largest numbers of executions have taken place in the provinces of Khuzestan, Kurdistan, Azarbaijan and Tehran. All those sentenced to death have been sentenced behind closed doors and without any regard for international conventions.

These days in Tehran a number of prisoners on death row, mostly political prisoners, have been transferred from around the country to Rejaee Shahr Prison. Two of those prisoners, Mr Fazel Ramazani and Mr Hajat Morad Mohammadi, both political dissidents and activists who had spent 9 years in prison, were executed along with prisoners which the government labels as “rogues and ruffians”.

A few months ago Hojjat Zamani was executed. The torture of the prisoners is so severe that last year two prisoners, namely Akbar Mohammadi and Valiollah Feiz Mahdavi, were killed under mysterious circumstances. It is feared that the executions and tortures will continue".

Read more!

Iran's booming Crane, Rope and Designer Mask Industry

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran hanged the killers of a judge, who had jailed several reformist dissidents, before a crowd of hundreds of people on Thursday.

Majid Kavousifar and Hossein Kavousifar, his nephew, were hanged in front of Tehran’s Ershad judiciary complex, where they shot dead judge Hassan Moghaddas in his car in 2005.

The two were not political activists, but Tehran’s public prosecutor said Majid Kavousifar had believed the judge was corrupt. The prosecutor branded the killers as “terrorists.” (Where do they manufacture these matching designer masks?)

Judge Moghaddas had presided over the jailing of seven dissidents in 2000 after they attended a conference in Berlin on Iranian reform.

Public executions rare
Iran has one of the highest rates of execution in the world, but public executions are relatively rare.

Hoods over the heads of the judge’s killers were removed before the hanging, which took place in front of a giant portrait of Moghaddas. Hossein Kavousifar was in tears. His uncle smiled and waved goodbye.

Onlookers in the street and on the roofs of houses chanted and took pictures with mobile phones. Some laughed.

The tearful mother of one of the killers shouted: “God, please give me back my son.”

'Immoral behavior'
Dozens of people have been executed for rape, smuggling and other offences in Iran in recent weeks. Most were arrested in a crackdown on “immoral behavior,” which began in April.

Iran hanged nine men on Wednesday for rape, armed robbery and other offences. Some 16 people were hanged in July.

Murder, rape, adultery, armed robbery, apostasy and drug smuggling are all punishable by death under Iran’s Islamic Sharia law, imposed since the 1979 revolution.

The number of executions doubled to at least 177 last year, according to Amnesty International. Since the beginning of 2007, at least 124 people have been put to death. Western rights groups have called on Iran to abolish the death penalty.

Update: Kamangir has more disturbing photoes: See more, graphic, pictures here. As always, happy Iranians rushed to the scene. Truly appalling.

Read more!

Number of people executed in Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Pakistan rises despite overall decline, Amnesty international says

Guardian: In Iran, the number of executions almost doubled to 177 from 94, possibly linked to a crackdown on Baluchis. One-third of those executed came from this minority group.

How many executions is this per day? Do the math...

Read more!

Pious License to Kill

From Shariar Zangenh:

The New York Times has a news item on its Thursday's front page that is old news to most, if not all, Iranians.

The Islamic vigilantes in the pay of the state who had admitted to gruesomely stoning, drowning and burying alive five people to death were exonerated by the Islamic Republic's Supreme Court. The one page opinion affirms the right of the pious, explicitly granted in the Holy Book, to shed with impunity the blood of those they deem "morally corrupt".

Should an error of judgment have been committed by the pious, the victim's family is entitled to blood money compensation, Diyya, officially set by the state and adjusted annually to reflect inflation. The rate of compensation is based on the market value of camel, the hoofed animal, and doled out at the rate of full face value for male deceased and half of that for female or non-moslems of officially tolerated religions; all others are not entitled to anything.

Those who have followed this case know the number of victims of this particular gang to be far greater than the five mentioned in the official documents. They also know that this is not an aberration; rather, it is the norm in the Islamic Republic.

What sets this latest publicly acknowledged episode apart from the others is the Islamic Supreme Court's ruling. Up till now the other cases were either not reported, were swept under the rug by the authorities, the victims were demonized posthumously and if all failed, a show trial was staged, a sentence announced and the culprit(s) never saw a day of incarceration, let alone capital punishment so favored by the Islamic courts.

Based on this Islamic Supreme Court's precedent setting ruling, vigilantism is now the official law of the land. One, any one of any race creed or color, can at any moment become a victim of any self proclaimed "pious" -- and, should by an outside chance be possible to prove that he was mistaken in his evaluation, as long as he has had good intention in enforcing the pious' unwritten code of conduct, blood money will be paid as proscribed by law and all will be well in the land of believers.

Perhaps the Lady Nobel Laureate, famed Iranian lawyer who rightly champions the cause of the incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, would find the time to effectuate her often declared and yet not actuated threat of filing grievances at "relevant international entities". While she is contemplating the drafting of the long awaited complaint, in light of the recent ruling, she might want to extrapolate on her mantra of compatibility of Sharia jurisprudence with those of democratic values

Read more!