Mizan news agency, affiliated with the judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, this morning [Monday 29 January] reported the execution of four Kurdish political prisoners, in Qezel Hesar prison in Karaj.
 

The execution of Mohsen Mazloum, Mohammad Faramarzi, Vafa Azarbar, and Pejman Fatehi took place despite the protests of human rights organisations.  All four detainees had been extensively tortured during their interrogation by officers of the Ministry of Intelligence. 

The four were did not receive a fair hearing before a court of law and were denied legal due process throughout.   

The families of the condemned men were allowed to visit them only yesterday [Sunday] before they were transferred from Evin Prison to Qezel Hesar prison for the execution of their death sentences.

According to Joana Taimsi, the wife of Mohsen Mazloum, the families had previously been deprived of visiting them for 19 months, ever since their arrest in July 2022.

On the 23 July 2022, Mohsen Mazloum (Maarofi), 28 years old from Mahabad; Pejman Fatehi, 28 years old from Kamyaran; Vafa Azarbar, 29 years old from Bukan; and Mohammad (Hazhir) Faramarzi, 29 years old from Dehgolan, were arrested by agents of the Intelligence Organisation of the Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Soma district of Urmia city, in north-western Iran.  

In October 2022, 80 days after their arrest, regime-controlled TV and news stations broadcasted the forced confessions of the four political prisoners.  The state media claimed that the four had connections with “foreign intelligence services”.  The regime’s sources then claimed that the four had been arrested in connection with attempts to sabotage a “sensitive defence related establishment in Isfahan”.

In an official statement, the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan rejected the regime’s allegations regarding the four being saboteurs as “baseless” and emphasised that “such a scenario has been concocted by the theocratic regime to enable its suppression of more people and protesters”.

In line with its principled stance on the issue, held since its very founding, CODIR unequivocally opposes the use of the death penalty and views it as one of the main instruments of brutal oppression meted out to the long-suffering people of Iran.

The death sentence is one of the vile hallmarks of the Islamic Republic regime which has long topped the world’s statistics for the rate of execution per population…  A damning indictment of its cruel rule!  CODIR demands at least a moratorium on the execution of death sentences in Iran pursuant to their outright abolition, and that those officials involved in the perpetration of these most egregious of human rights abuses are brought to account for them in the future.

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