Amnesty warns of political executions in Iran Sat. 25 Feb 2006

Iran Focus

London, Feb. 25 – The human rights group Amnesty International announced that it had “grave concern” about the “alarming rate” of executions in Iran, in particular highlighting the cases of a number of political prisoners, several of whom are on death row.

“One of those recently executed was a political prisoner, Hojjat Zamani, a member of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), who was abducted from Turkey in 2003 and sentenced to death in 2004”, Amnesty said in a statement on Friday, adding that it took Iranian officials two weeks to announce his execution.

Zamani was executed on February 7, aged 31.

“Hojjat Zamani’s execution has fuelled fears that other political prisoners may be at risk of imminent execution”, the rights group said.

It said that there had been reports circulating since the start of February that “a number of political and other prisoners who are under sentence of death have been told by prison officials that they would be executed if Iran should be referred to the UN Security Council over the resumption of its nuclear programme”.

“These are said to have included other members of the PMOI”, it said, adding, “It was the PMOI that was the source of evidence in 2002 revealing Iran’s nuclear programme to the outside world”.

“Among those feared to be at risk are Sa’id Masouri, a PMOI member who has been held in solitary confinement in Section 209 of Evin Prison since late 2004; Khaled Hardani, Farhang Pour Mansouri and Shahram Pour Mansouri, all three of whom were involved in hijacking a plane in 2001 when Shahram Pour Mansouri was aged only 17; Gholamhossein Kalbi and Valiollah Feyz Mahdavi, both PMOI members, and Alireza Karami Khairabadi”, Amnesty said.

It said that two Iranian Arabs were also in danger of imminent execution.

The group also said it was “outraged” that Tehran continued to hand death sentences to minors “in contravention of its international human rights obligations”.

“In 2005 alone, at least eight executions of child offenders were recorded”, it said.

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