Two Baluch Political Prisoners Transferred for Execution

Iran Human Rights had previously warned that based on previous years, there would be a rise in executions over the Christmas and New Year period when most international organisations and civil society are closed for the holidays.

According to IHR, on New Year’s Day, two Sunni prisoners were transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for their executions. Elias Ghalandarzehi and Hassan Dehvari were sentenced to death on charges of “moharebeh (enmity against God) through membership in Jaish al-Adl.”

Both Saravan residents, 28 year old Hassan Dehvari is a married father of five and Elias Ghalandarzehi, 21, is an only child and married with a daughter.

An informed source told IHR: “On Saturday morning, their families were asked to come and pay their last visit.”

According to a letter the men wrote from prison, before being transferred to prison, they had spent seven months in the Ministry of Intelligence’s detention centre “under torture” and had twice been taken before Judge Shah Mohammadi at Branch Six of the Revolutionary Court.

Describing the torture, Hassan Dehvari wrote: “In the (Ministry of) Intelligence (detention centre), we were subjected to physical and psychological torture including being threatened with rape, tying us to the “miracle bed” (a bed used for flogging prisoners), all types of instruments, like whips, cable wires, a metal helmet that would be wired with electric shocks to our heads, attempting to pull out hand and toe nails, turning on an electric drill and threatening to drill our arms and legs, bringing my wife and a video camera and finally told me that either I accept the charges or they would rape her and film it in front of me.”

In an interview with Emtedad, the two men’s lawyer, Mohammad Reza Faghihi said that he had requested a retrial for his clients and was hopeful that their execution would at least be postponed until the retrial was concluded.