Ahwazi: Fear of Imminent Execution
Article by the British Ahwazi Friendship Society:
The Iranian Supreme Court has confirmed death sentences for 10 Ahwazis convicted of bomb attacks in
He told Khuzestan TV: "These people, according to Islamic punishment laws, have been identified as elements who have waged war on God and therefore execution rulings have been issued in their cases. The rulings have been reviewed at the highest judicial levels and then endorsed. The cases were quite large and many senior judges were involved in reviewing them. We will pave the way for the rulings to be carried out."
The judgements on the men have been condemned by their lawyers and Iranian human rights activists as well as activists abroad. The lawyers of the accused have written to the President and senior judicial officials regarding the serious irregularities in the court cases, including preventing them from meeting with their clients and forced confessions. The regime responded by arresting the lawyers, all but one of whom are Ahwazi Arabs. According to a recent report by the official Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA), Khalil Saeedi, Mansur Atashneh, Dr Abdulhasan Haidari, Jawad Tariri, Faisal Saeedi and Taheri Nasab - the lawyers representing the accused - were questioned in Branch 7 of the
Human Rights Watch has released a statement calling for an immediate halt to the executions and the revoking of the death penalty. It said: "The death sentences were imposed following secret trials that Human Rights Watch said could not be considered to meet international standards."
Sarah Leah Whitson, Director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa division, said: "Iran's opaque judicial system denies people due process and then hands down a death sentence after a one-day trial. The Judiciary should stop these executions."
Those facing the death penalty include Zamel Bawi, Jaafar Sawari, Risan Sawari and Abdulreza Nawaseri, who were sentenced on 8 June after a one-day trial in which there were no witnesses. According to HRW, "the Judiciary has not provided dates and details of trials for the other nine men sentenced to death."
Two of those sentenced to death, Nazem Bureihi and Abdolreza Nawaseri, were already serving prison sentences for insurgency at the time of the bomb attacks for which the regime claims they were responsible.
"One of the wonders of the Iranian Judiciary is that it can accuse a person of carrying out bombings while he's in prison," said Whitson. "That lays bare the arbitrariness of his conviction."
In an article in The Times, British human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell also raised concerns about the trial, pointing out that three of the accused (Hamza Sawa- eri, Jafar Sawari and Reisan Sawari) say that they were nowhere near the Zergan oilfield the day it was bombed.