2023-05-19 15:06:00
© Particular
Responding to the execution of three tortured protesters – Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi – after an unfair trial not remotely resembling a serious legal proceeding, Diana Eltahawy, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International, has manifested:
“We are appalled by the gruesome execution of these protesters that took place this morning. They were sentenced to death less than two months after their arrest, and executed just weeks after the Supreme Court upheld their unfair convictions. and death sentences without taking into account the lack of evidence and the serious allegations of torture. The astonishing speed with which these three men were led to their deaths illustrates the authorities’ flagrant disregard for the rights to life and a fair trial.”
“These executions are designed by the Iranian authorities to send a strong message to the world and to the people of Iran that they will stop at nothing to suppress and punish dissent. Without a strong international response, the authorities will continue to bask in their impunity, with deadly consequences for the people of Iran.”
“Governments must urgently denounce these executions, in the strongest possible terms, through public statements and demarches. However, this is not enough given the Iranian authorities’ relentless use of the death penalty. For Iranians, time is a luxury they do not have access to: their lives are arbitrarily taken at a breakneck pace, in mock judicial executions.”
“We urge all states to exercise universal jurisdiction over all Iranian officials against whom there is sufficient admissible evidence of criminal responsibility for torture and other crimes under international law.”
“The Iranian authorities must be made to understand unequivocally that the world will not stand by indifferently to their intensification of the use of the death penalty as a tool of political repression.”
Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi were arrested in November 2022 after taking part in demonstrations in the city of Isfahan during the wave of protests that sparked the nationwide death in custody of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini.
According to well-informed sources, they were tortured after being subjected to enforced disappearance and forced to make the incriminating statements on which the criminal case against them was based. The sources said that the interrogators hung Majid Kazemi upside down and showed him a video in which his brother, also detained, was being tortured. They also subjected him to at least 15 mock executions by making him stand on a chair and place a noose around his neck, pulling him down at the last moment. In the days leading up to the trial, they threatened to kill his brothers if he did not accept his charges and “confess” to what they told him.
In an audio message sent from Dastgerd prison, where the three men were being held, Majid Kazemi is heard saying: “I swear to God that I am innocent. He was not carrying any weapons. [Los agentes de las fuerzas de seguridad] they kept beating me and ordering me to say that this gun is mine. […] I told them I would say what they wanted, but please leave my family alone. I did what they wanted by torture.”
The men were tried in December 2022 and January 2023, and sentenced to death on the general and vague charge of “enmity with God” (moharebeh). This charge was based on unsubstantiated allegations – the product of “confessions” made under torture – that the men had used firearms in an incident that had taken place during the protests in Isfahan, in which three members of the security forces were killed. . However, they were not charged or found guilty of murder for those deaths. On May 10, the authorities announced that the Supreme Court had upheld their convictions and death sentences despite the violation of their due process rights, the significant procedural deficiencies, lack of evidence and allegations of torture that were never investigated. According to informed sources, the authorities had informed the men’s families on several occasions before the Supreme Court decision that they would be pardoned and released for lack of evidence.
The men were buried in three different locations under tight security. After executing Majid Kazemi this morning, the authorities detained one of his brothers.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime, the characteristics and the guilt or innocence of the accused person and the method used by the State to carry out the crime. execution, because he considers that it violates the right to life, proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The death penalty is the maximum exponent of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
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