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Iran: Seven Prisoners Executed in One Day at One Prison

22 Apr 20
Iran: Seven Prisoners Executed in One Day at One Prison

Iran Human Rights (IHR); April 22, 2020: At least seven death-row prisoners were executed this morning at Rajai-Shahr prison, Karaj city, near the capital. One of the prisoners was sentenced to death with no hard evidence of guilt but by qassameh (sworn oath). 

Seven prisoners were hanged in the early morning of Wednesday, April 22, at Rajai-Shahr prison. 

Iran Human Rights researchers could identify six of them as Mohsen Rezaeian, Alireza Aryaei, Hamidreza Asgharpour-Masouleh, Mostafa Ghiasvand, Mehdi Asemi and Ana Dardi Babaei. 

Ana Dardi Babaei had spent 28 years in jail before execution.

Mohsen Rezaeian was a disabled person who lost his one leg and one hand due to an electrical injury before his arrest.

Hamidreza Asgharpour Masouleh was charged with murdering his wife.

With no hard evidence and despite his denial, Hamidreza was sentenced to death by qassameh. "Even the forensics said in advance that the bruises on her wife's corpse are the result of resuscitation. They changed their diagnosis later but the court issued the death sentence by qassameh," a well-informed source told IHR.

Qassameh is a way to prove a crime (murder or injury) in the Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) which is practised in Iran. Qassameh, which means "sworn oath", is based on swearing an oath on the Quran by a certain number of people and is performed when the judge decides that there is not enough evidence of guilt to prove the crime but the judge still thinks that the defender is most probably guilty. It must be noted that the people who swear in Qassameh are not usually direct witnesses to the crime.

Issuing an execution verdict without enough shreds of evidence, and just because the plaintiff’s family thinks the defender is guilty, is not acceptable in any kind of modern legal system and should be considered a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, especially Article 10.