ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iranian authorities executed at least six prisoners in recent days, including members of minority groups, part of what an activist called a wave of executions that is angering the people.
Iran has repeatedly used the death penalty to silence dissent and in the early hours of Sunday morning executed Hassan Dehvari and Elias Qlandarzehi, state-run IRNA reported.
The two Sunni prisoners, Baluchis, were put into isolation on Friday in anticipation of their execution, according to their lawyer. Mohammad Reza Faqihi said his clients were taken into solitary confinement on Friday despite appealing their death sentence and requesting a retrial. The two prisoners were detained in 2015 and sentenced to death in December 2016.
A third prisoner, Omid Mahmoud Zehi, was executed reportedly for murder on Sunday.
A few days earlier, on Thursday, authorities put to death another three Sunni prisoners in Adalatabad prison in Mashhad. The executions were carried out without informing the families.
“The sentences of Hamid Rastbala, Kabir Saadat-Jahani and Mohammadl Ali Arayesh, the Sunni prisoners, were carried out on Thursday … in Mashhad,” Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported on Friday.
Hamid Rastbala had written a letter in the summer in which he said he was under relentless pressure to make televised confessions and described the torture the prisoners experienced. “Some of us were pepper-sprayed in our genitals and anus,” Rastbala wrote. Some of the charges “are related to 1996, while I was 12 at the time.”
The three men were part of a group of ten people who were detained in 2016 and kept in solitary confinement for 10 to 12 months. The detainees were mostly in their early teens at the time and were charged with membership in al-Furqan, a Sunni Salafi group that was active in Iran in the 1990s.
In late December, at least five Baluchi prisoners were put into solitary confinement in anticipation of their execution, their lawyer Mostafa Nili said. Two were later executed.
Baluchis are a mainly Sunni ethnic minority in Iran, mainly living in the southeastern Baluchestan region, near the border with Pakistan. Abdollah Aref, the head of Baloch Campaign that highlights human rights violations in the Sistan and Baluchestan area of Iran, said authorities have executed people because of the activities of their relatives.
"Hasan Dehvari was utterly innocent. His brother is active against the regime. He was detained because of his brother,” Aref told Rudaw English via WhatsApp.
This was not the first time a family member paid the price of a relative’s actions. "A few years ago, the authorities executed 16 Baluch citizens because their relatives were involved in anti- government activities," said Aref. Iran claims these individuals were involved in anti-establishment activities and were charged with rebellion against the state.
"The families are desperate. They thought they would not hang them. I don't know why the authorities have started this surge of executions, but this is not scaring people, if that is the intention. People are becoming very angry instead," Aref said.
Iran executes hundreds of prisoners every year. In 2020, “236 citizens were executed, 72% of which were carried out in secret and 80% of the executions were related to charges of murder,” according to the annual human rights report by HRANA, covering the year up to December 20.
Iranian judicial authorities handed out a total of 22,271 months of jail time to defendants, including critics of the establishment, and 23,946 lashes the authoritative human rights organization stated.
Tehran came under scrutiny last year for a series of high-profile executions, including wrestler Nafid Akfari and journalist Ruhollah Zam.
Updated at 1:59 pm
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