{"id":1758,"date":"2020-09-13T20:57:27","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T19:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/codir.net\/?p=1758"},"modified":"2020-09-13T20:57:27","modified_gmt":"2020-09-13T19:57:27","slug":"iran-secret-execution-of-wrestler-navid-afkari-a-travesty-of-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/codir.net\/?p=1758","title":{"rendered":"Iran: Secret execution of wrestler Navid Afkari a \u2018travesty of justice\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The secret execution this morning of wrestling champion Navid Afkari, without prior notice to him, his family or lawyer, after a grossly unfair trial, is a horrifying travesty of justice that needs immediate international action.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"quote\" data-scenario=\"quote_text\">\n<div class=\"quote__text\" data-utm-term=\"4oCcTmF2aW\">\u201cNavid Afkari was a young man with a promising future ahead of him. Carrying out his death sentence with such utter disregard for the basic principles of justice further demonstrates the cruelty of the death penalty. A series of judges in different courts used forced \u2018confessions\u2019 obtained under torture to convict him, and consistently failed to investigate his complaints of torture.\u201d<\/div>\n<footer class=\"quote__source\" data-scenario=\"quote_author\">Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International\u2019s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa<\/footer>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Before his secret execution Navid Afkari, 27, was subjected to a shocking catalogue of human rights violations and crimes, including enforced disappearance; torture and other ill-treatment, leading to forced \u201cconfessions\u201d; and denial of access to a lawyer and other fair trial guarantees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis young man desperately sought help in court to receive a fair trial and prove his innocence. Leaked voice recordings of him in court expose how his pleas for judges to investigate his torture complaints and bring another detainee who had witnessed his torture to testify were unlawfully and cruelly ignored,\u201d said Diana Eltahawy.<\/p>\n<p>Before his execution, another voice recording from inside prison was released, in which he said: \u201cIf I am executed, I want you to know that an innocent person, even though he tried and fought with all his strength to be heard, was executed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven the impunity which prevails in Iran, we urge the international community, including UN human rights bodies and EU member states, to take strong action through public and private interventions,\u201d said Diana Eltahawy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe deplore the Iranian authorities\u2019 repeated use of the death penalty, which has earned it the shameful status of consistently being among the world\u2019s most prolific executioners. There is no justification for the death penalty, which is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, and we urge the Iranian authorities to abolish it.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"share-this\">\n                    <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\"\nclass=\"twitter-share-button\"\ndata-count=\"horizontal\">Tweet<\/a>\n                    <script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script>\n                    <div class=\"facebook-share-button\">\n                        <iframe\nsrc=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fcodir.net%2F%3Fp%3D1758&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=200&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;height=21\"\nscrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none;\noverflow:hidden; width:200px; height:21px;\"\nallowTransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe>\n                    <\/div>\n                <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The secret execution this morning of wrestling champion Navid Afkari, without prior notice to him, his family or lawyer, after a grossly unfair trial, is a horrifying travesty of justice that needs immediate international action. \u201cNavid Afkari was a young [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-human-rights-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1759,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions\/1759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codir.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}