Tehran Plans to Execute 3 Protesters of Election

          
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          October 11, 2009
          Tehran Plans to Execute 3 Protesters of Election
          By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
          CAIRO — Iranian officials have sentenced to death three protesters who participated in demonstrations
          following the nation's disputed presidential election in June, according to ISNA, Iran's semiofficial news
          agency.
          The news service quoted an unnamed spokesman for the Tehran prosecutor's office saying that the three
          were sentenced to be hanged and that they had been part of what Iran considered terrorist organizations.
          The death sentences are the first to be made public in cases involving the hundreds charged in the vast
          protests that followed the government's declaration of a landslide victory for the incumbent, Mahmoud
          Ahmadinejad , in the June 12 presidential election.
          Reform-aligned Web sites reported last week that a prisoner named Mohammad-Reza Ali-Zamani had
          received a death sentence. The announcement on Saturday, which said a man with the initials M. Z. would
          be put to death, appears to confirm that sentence and report two others.
          According to the report Saturday, two of the protesters were members of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, a
          group that wants to restore the monarchy.
          The third, identified as N. A., was said to be a member of People's Mujahedeen of Iran, an exile group that
          Iran says works to overthrow the government.
          The news of death sentences sparked immediate condemnation from international human rights groups. In
          the weeks after the election, millions of Iranians marched in the streets of Tehran, charging that Mr.
          Ahmadinejad stole the race. At least 30 people were killed in a government crackdown that quelled the
          protests but failed to end the simmering discontent.
          “Zamani's trial was a mockery of justice,” the executive director of Amnesty International USA, Larry Cox,
          said in a statement. “To impose the death sentence is beyond deplorable. Iran should immediately rescind
          this sentence.”
          The ISNA report, without giving details, said the court also sentenced i8 other protesters. That raised
          concerns about the hundreds ofjournalists, former government officials, academics and protesters still held
          in prison, many incommunicado, said the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran , a group based
          in the United States.
          There have been many charges of protesters' being tortured while in prison, and the government has agreed
          that some prisoners were abused, although it has continued to dispute accusations that some were raped
          11/2/2009 11:58 AM
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          TehranPlaris to E , cute 3 Protesters of Election- NYTines,com lttp://www ,r tlmes ,coni'2OO9/lO/l l/world/nflddleeast/l liranltml?pag,..
          and sodomized.
          “Iranian authorities have released little or no information about many of the approximately 400 persons
          who remain detained,” the human rights campaign said in a statement, adding that Iran was “violating
          international standards for due process and raising deep concerns about their health and safety.”
          Among those who remain in detention are Maziar Bahari , a filmmaker and reporter for Newsweek , and
          Shapur Kazemi, the brother-in-law of Mir Hussein Moussavi , who the opposition claims won the election.
          Mr. Kazemi, 62, is a respected telecommunications engineer and is known for his activities in technical and
          economic fields rather than for political activism.
          Others who are still being held include the former vice president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi; Muhammad
          Atrianfar, a publisher and confidant of the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ; Mostafa
          Tajzadeh, a deputy interior minister in the reformist government of the former president Mohammad
          Khatami ; Saeed Leylaz, an economist and former government official; and the journalist Isa Saharkhiz, who
          according to Iranian news reports suffered broken ribs during interrogation.
          Student activists being held include Abdullah Momeni , a former spokesman for the student group Iran
          Alumni Association, who confessed in court. Mr. Momeni's wife says he had been badly tortured, according
          to Iranian news reports.
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