Logo of the NGO Amnesty International. ISAAC LAWRENCE
Iran on Friday executed a Kurd considered a “political prisonerfor his membership in a party banned by Tehran, human rights organizations reported. Mohayyedine Ebrahimi was hanged at dawn at Urmia prison in northwestern Iran, Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Hengaw, two organizations based in Norway, said in separate statements. Five other men were also executed in the morning in Urmia for drug trafficking, according to the same sources.
According to Hengaw, the family was first informed of Ebrahimi’s transfer to another prison after the suspension of his sentence, before being contacted to collect his body. He was convicted for being a member of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, a banned armed group that led an armed struggle for self-determination in the Kurdish-populated region of Iran. Ebrahimi denied the accusations, saying he worked as “kolbar(smuggler) of goods from Iraq, according to NGOs who called him “political prisoner“. He was arrested in 2017, before being sentenced to death the following year.
IHR added that a protest took place late Thursday outside the gates of Urmia prison, after Ebrahimi’s relatives understood that his execution would be imminent. His son was arrested in the process, according to the same source. Separately, another inmate was hanged Thursday in Khorramabad prison in western Iran for the murder of a policeman, the official IRNA news agency reported.
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The death penalty for repression
Tehran has been accused of using the death penalty as a tool to crack down on protests sparked by the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd arrested for violating the Islamic Republic’s dress code, strictly for women. Four men have been executed so far for acts committed in connection with these demonstrations. According to IHR, 144 people have already been executed since the beginning of the year.
IHR Director Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam described those executed as “as victims of the government’s execution machine, whose sole purpose is to intimidate people and prevent protests“. For its part, Amnesty International has accused Iran of a “frightening escalation in the application of the death penalty“, the Kurdish and Baloch ethnic minorities being particularly targeted, according to the NGO.