Saturday, 21 November 2009

30 hanged in Ahvaz during the past 8 months

NCRI - The Iranian regime has hanged three prisoners in the central city of Esfahan in public. The Fars News Agency, affiliated with the regime’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, wrote on November 19, 2009, that the hangings were carried out in the presence of Mohammad Reza Habibi, the regime’s prosecutor in Esfahan.

Separately, the regime’s prosecutor in the southern city of Ahvaz, Sadeghi, has confessed to the hanging of 30 prisoners in the past 8 months in Ahvaz. According to Fars on November 18, Sadeghi said 13 people charged with drug smuggling, three charged with “waging war against God,” one for theft, in addition to 13 others have been hanged in the city under the clerical regime’s punitive law known as “Qesas” or retribution. The official did not divulge further information about the names and particulars of the victims.

Regime officials in Isfahan and Ahvaz proclaim that the reasons for the hangings are “upholding security,” “serving justice,” and “refusing leniency towards criminals.”

In recent days officials of the clerical regime, including the Chief Prosecutor, Mohseni Ejei, have emphasized the carrying out of “maximum punishment” with regards to alleged offenders, while state-run media close to the regime’s Supreme Leader, ceaselessly disseminate news of hangings in order to terrify people.

The Iranian Resistance calls on all international human rights organizations, especially the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, to condemn the sentencing and carrying out of hangings in Iran, and demands the implementation of binding and urgent measures aimed to end the growing trend of human rights violations in Iran with special attention to the cruel punishment of hanging.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
November 21, 2009