Amnesty International has issued a statement protesting the horrific increase in executions of ethnic minority prisoners over the past two months, urging Iranian authorities to immediately halt the execution of four Baluch prisoners and four Ahwazi Arab prisoners. Amnesty International said the international community, including the UN human rights body and the European Union, must take immediate action to save the lives of these prisoners.

 

Amnesty International has issued a statement protesting the horrific increase in executions of ethnic minority prisoners over the past two months, urging Iranian authorities to immediately halt the execution of four Baluch prisoners and four Ahwazi Arab prisoners. Amnesty International said the international community, including the UN human rights body and the European Union, must take immediate action to save the lives of these prisoners.

"The sharp increase in executions of Ahwazi Baluch and Arab prisoners in recent months has raised serious concerns that authorities are using the death penalty as a tool to intimidate minorities," said Diana Al-Tahawi, Amnesty International's Deputy Middle East and North Africa Office. They are oppressed and so is society. "The high number of executions among prisoners belonging to ethnic minorities and the disproportionate number of these minorities to the population of these minorities in Iran is the clearest example of institutional repression and discrimination that these oppressed groups have faced for decades."

"Amnesty International calls on the international community to take concerted action to force the Iranian authorities to suspend executions following overtly unfair trials based on confessions obtained under torture."

The four Baluch prisoners at risk of execution in Zahedan prisons in Sistan and Baluchestan Province and Dastgerd in Isfahan Province have all been subjected to a long list of human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, confessions, torture and unfair trials. The names of two of them are Hamed Rigi and Mehran Naroui, and the names of the other two have been withheld by Amnesty International due to security concerns.

Three Ahwazi Arab prisoners sentenced to death in Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz, Khuzestan Province - Ali Khosraji, Hossein Silavi and Jassem Heydari - have been on the verge of extinction since February 25, 2017, in protest of prison conditions, banning visits to their families and the constant threat of execution. They sewed together and went on a hunger strike. Another Arab prisoner, Nasser Khafajian, has been in a state of enforced disappearance since April 2010, thus endangering torture and secret execution.

 According to the Abdolrahman Boroumand Center, as of December 1, 2020, Iranian authorities have executed at least 49 people, more than a third of whom were Baluch prisoners. At least 19 Baluch prisoners and one Ahwazi Arab prisoner have been executed since December 19, 2020.

Diana Al-Tahawi, Amnesty International's Deputy Middle East and North Africa Office, said: "It is appalling that the Supreme Court of Iran has consistently upheld rulings issued after severely unfair trials. "This situation has left virtually no possibility of prosecution and prosecution for the victims of the country's flawed penal system, and has given human rights violators absolute impunity."

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all circumstances, without exception. The death penalty is the most cruel, inhuman and degrading form of punishment and violates the right to life recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.