Iran executes Kurdish, Arab political prisoners

Fazel Hawramy

Erbil, Kurdistan Region - Iran executed two other political prisoners this week and sentenced a dual national to death as Western countries ratchet up the economic pressure on the country in response to the regime’s violent crackdown on protesters. 

Iran’s state media on Wednesday night said that Sarkawt (Arash) Ahmadi, a former member of Komala, leftist Kurdish armed opposition party, was executed on Wednesday morning in the Kurdish city of Kermanshah.

Ahmadi was detained in December 2020 after leaving Komala, based in the neighboring Kurdistan Region, intending to travel to Europe illegally through northwest Iran and Turkey, a regular route taken by thousands of migrants every year. He was detained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the border area and was subjected to months of isolation in solitary confinement and severe torture by the forces’ interrogators.  He was accused of assassinating a traffic police officer.

Iran uses execution in times of crises to intimidate the population and instill fear in the society. The authorities executed four protesters for their participation in the recent wave of protests that were sparked by the killing of Zhina (Mahsa) Amini by the morality police in Tehran in mid-September. Iran has executed 87 people in 2023 alone according to Oslo-based Iran Human Rights.

The security forces, spearheaded by the IRGC and its militia Basij, killed at least 530 protesters and wounded thousands of others. Many protesters in detention have been subjected to brutal torture to make video confessions admitting guilt.

The execution of the Kurdish political prisoner on Wednesday took place in the same week as reports by human rights organizations stating that another political prisoner from the Arab ethnic minority in southwest Iran was executed. Hossein Abiat was from Ahwaz and had been imprisoned for 11 years due to his membership of opposition groups. The authorities in Sepidar Prison in Ahwaz executed him on Monday.

Iran has come under growing pressure by the international community for its brutality against the protesters and for providing cheap drones to Russia in its aggression against Ukraine.

The European Union imposed new sanctions on Monday on 32 individuals and two entities in Iran for being involved in human rights violations in the country.

Iran said on Tuesday that it sentenced a German citizen to death with Germany retaliating by expelling two employees of the Iranian embassy in Berlin.

Jamshid Sharmahd is a journalist of Iranian descent who was abducted from Dubai in July 2020 by agents of the ministry of intelligence and was taken to Iran after being accused of being involved in a 2008 bombing in Shiraz which killed 14 people.

Mohammad Moghimi, an Iranian human rights lawyer said on twitter that the court proceedings were ‘unfair’ and the death sentence is against the Iranian constitution, Sharia law, and conscience.

 

 

Kurdistan Human Rights Network, which covers the human rights violations in the Kurdish areas in western Iran, said that Ahmadi’s families were not informed prior to his execution for the last meeting as per Iranian law.