Iran executions send a chilling message

          
          Iran execuflois send a chilling message Anmesty Inteniafional lttp://wwwanmestyorg/en'iews-and-updates/iran-exectthons-send-chllli
          AMNESTY
          I NIERNATI ONAL ________________________
          In your country:
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          Iran execuflois send a chilling message Anmesty Inteniafional lttp://wwwanmestyorg/en'iews-and-updates/iran-exectthons-send-chllli.
          > Home > Iran executions send a chilling message
          IRAN EXECUTIONS SEND A CHILLING
          MESSAGE
          30 March 2010
          Recent
          developments
          in Iran have
          prompted fears _____________________
          that the Iranian
          authorities are
          once more
          using
          executions as a
          tool to try and
          quell political
          unrest,
          intimidate the
          population and
          send a signal
          that dissent will
          not be
          tolerated.
          There was a
          noticeable
          surge in the
          rate of
          executions at
          the time of
          mass protests
          over last year's
          disputed
          Presidential
          elections.
          Although many
          of the
          executions
          were for
          criminal
          offences
          committed
          before the
          unrest, they
          sent a chilling
          message to
          those involved in protests.
          There was a rise in executions of ju enile
          offenders like Delara Darabi who was put to
          death in April
          © www.rnyspace.cornfhelpdelsrs
          lnteniiew with Philip A lston, UN Special
          Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or
          Arbitrary Executions
          © Amnesty Internstionsl
          Download this audio file
          Executions increased at the time of mass
          protests o er last year's Presidential election
          © Javad Montazeri
          A series of ‘show trials' led to two men being
          hanged in January
          © APGraphicsBank
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          28/07 2010 09:43
        

          
          Iran execuflois send a chilling message Anmesty Inteniafional lttp://wwwanmestyorg/en'zews-and-updates/iran-exectthons-send-chllli
          One hundred and twelve people were put to death in the eight
          weeks between the June election and the re-inauguration of
          President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in early August- almost a
          third of the total for the entire year.
          In 2009 as a whole at least 388 people were put to death in
          Iran - the largest number recorded by Amnesty International in
          recent years. Figures collated by various human rights
          organizations, including Amnesty International, suggest the
          annual number of executions has almost quadrupled since
          President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was first elected five years
          ago. Many of those executed did not receive fair trials.
          “The continuing surge in executions at a time when Iran has
          experienced the most widespread popular unrest since the
          1979 Islamic Revolution, combined with numerous statements
          by officials threatening protestors with execution, indicates
          that the Iranian authorities are again using the death penalty
          to try and cow the opposition and silence dissent,” said
          Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International's Deputy
          Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
          “SHOW TRIALS”
          A series of “show trials” led to two men being hanged in
          January; the first executions which the authorities linked
          directly to the current unrest; although it later emerged that
          the pair were already in detention at the time of last June's
          presidential election.
          Among other things, they were convicted of “mohabareh”, or
          “enmity against God”. Nasrin Sotoudeh, lawyer for one of the
          men, Arash Rahmanipour, told Reuters “An execution with
          this speed and rush has only one explanation ... the
          government is trying to prevent the expansion of the current
          (opposition) movement through the spread of fear and
          intimidation.”
          An increasing number of people have been charged with
          “moharebeh”, a vaguely-defined offence. According to Philip
          A lston, the UN's Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary
          or arbitrary executions, it is “imposed for a wide range of
          crimes, often fairly ill-defined and generally having some sort
          of political nature.”
          At least nine other people, sentenced to death following the
          popular demonstrations which began last summer and were
          continuing at the end of 2009, are believed to be on death
          row.
          Recent comments by Tehran prosecutor Abbas Ja'fari
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          Iran execufioi's send a chilling message An'mesty Inten'iafional lttp://www,anmesty,org/en'mws-and-updates/iran-exectthons-send-chllli,,,
          Dowlatabadi served to fan suspicions that the sentences
          were politically motivated. Referring to the imposition of death
          sentences on a group of protesters, he said: “Today the
          Islamic system has firmly put its opponents and dissidents in
          their place. The people will not allow such incidents to
          reoccur in the country.
          EXECUTIONS UNDER PREVIOUS GOVERNMENTS
          This is not the first time that Iran's leaders have been accused
          of using summary executions or the death penalty as a tool of
          political control. Executions were used extensively under the
          Shah, and in the early days of the Islamic Republic as a way
          of eliminating political enemies and suppressing opposition.
          In the 1 970s, an increasingly unpopular Shah used the mass
          arrest of political opponents to eliminate political enemies and
          suppress opposition. At the time, Amnesty International
          criticized the Iranian authorities for what it described as the
          “extremely high number of executions” conducted after unfair
          trials by military tribunals.
          In 1979, more than 600 people were summarily executed by
          firing squad in the months following the Islamic Revolution.
          Many were former ministers, officials or army officers under
          the Shah. Some were executed after grossly unfair trials
          lasting only afew minutes. By 1982, Amnesty International
          had recorded well over 4,000 executions since the time of the
          Revolution.
          But the largest number of summary executions came in 1988.
          Up to 5,000 people — many of them political prisoners - are
          believed to have died in the so called ‘prison massacre”
          between 1988 and 1989, in what Amnesty International
          described at the time as a “purposeful mass killing of political
          opponents.” Many were members of the People's Mojahedin
          Organization of Iran, an opposition organization accused of
          collaborating with Saddam Hussain's Iraq during the eight
          year Iran-Iraq war. But others were members of secular,
          left-wing political parties regarded as a threat to Iran's Islamic
          system. In many cases, their “trials” consisted of a few
          questions put to them in their prison cells by members of what
          prisoners dubbed “The Death Commission”.
          A REVIVAL OF THE DEATH PENALTY
          The number of executions decreased in the 1990s. (Death
          sentences were handed down in the wake of student unrest
          in 1999, but were not implemented.) But they rose rapidly
          again after President Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005,
          pledging to improve public order, take action against “thugs
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          Iran execuflois send a chilling message An'mesty Inteniafional lttp://www.anmestyorg/en'mws-and-updates/iran-exectthons-send-chllli.,,
          and hooligans' and return Iran to the original values of the
          Islamic Revolution.
          There was also a rise in the number of executions of juvenile
          offenders — people sentenced to death for crimes committed
          when they were under the age of 18. Iran is one of only a
          handful of countries to continue such executions, in clear
          violation of international law. According to UN Special
          Rapporteur Philip A lston “No state really tries to defend it as a
          matter of principle - it's clearly outlawed. And yet Iran
          continues to not only charge juveniles, but to execute them in
          significant numbers.”
          Even before last summer's unrest, there were signs that
          President Ahmadinejad's government was increasingly using
          the death penalty as a way of stemming unrest in areas with
          large ethnic minorities. Bomb attacks in the predominantly
          Arab province of Khuzestan and ethnic Baluch areas of
          Sistan-Baluchistan province in recent years were followed by
          a wave of often public executions. Some of the condemned
          men were shown on state television making “confessions”
          that are believed to have been extracted from them under
          torture or other duress.
          Ehsan Fattahian, arrested in 2008 and convicted of being a
          member of a Kurdish opposition group, was executed last
          November. In a letter sent two days before he was hanged,
          he said his original sentence had been increased because he
          refused to appear on camera confessing to crimes he had not
          committed. He alleged that this move was “a result of
          pressure from security and political forces outside the
          judiciary.” Since last year's unrest, the number of Iranian
          Kurds being sentenced to death for political offences has
          continued to rise.
          UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston adds that “International
          law says very clearly that the death penalty can only be
          carried out for the most serious crimes. I have shown very
          clearly that that phrase was intended to refer to crimes which
          result in an intentional death of some sort - homicide - and
          that any lesser crimes cannot be punished by the death
          penalty. Again, that is a prohibition that the Iranian courts and
          the Iranian government have consistently neglected or
          ignored.”
          Hundreds, probably thousands, of individuals are currently on
          death row in Iran. Sometimes their ordeal can last for years.
          Amnesty International spoke to one prisoner who spent years
          on death row before his sentence was eventually commuted.
          In a telephone interview from jail he said:
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          Iran execuflois send a chilling message Anmesty Inteniafional lttp://www.anmestyorg/en'iews-and-updates/iran-exectthons-send-chllli.,,
          “Have you ever experienced receiving a death sentence?
          Have your partner, parents, brother, sister and relatives been
          told that tonight a close relative of yours is going to be
          executed? Can you understand the horror and shock of
          hearing such news? But me, two of my close relatives and our
          families have been going through this — not for a night or two
          or few nights, but for a period of over two thousand nights.”
          READ MORE
          Death penalty report: China must end secrecy
          surrounding sentences and executions (News, 29 March
          2010)
          The death penalty in 2009
          Delara Darabi executed in Iran (News, 30 April 2009)
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          6 of 6 28/07 2010 09:43