Six Sunni Kurdish Prisoners Were Executed This Morning

Six death row Kurdish Sunni prisoners who had been transferred to an unknown location yesterday, have been executed. Iran Human Rights (IHR) strongly condemns this inhumane act and holds the Iranian authorities' leader Ali Khamenei responsible for this barbaric act.   Iran Human Rights, March 4, 2015: According to reliable reports from Iran, the  six Sunni Muslim prisoners,Jamshid and Jahangir Dehgani (brothers), Hamed Ahmadi and Kamal Molayee, Sedigh Mohammadi and Hadi Hosseini belonging to the Kurdish ethnic minority in Iran were executed early Wednesday morning in Rajaishahr prison of Karaj. Their families and several well known human rights defenders and other people had gathered outside the prison several hours before the execution. Iran Human Rights (IHR) strongly condemns executions of the six prisoners and urges the international community to condemn this barbaric act. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR said: "We hold Ali Khamenei, the Supreme leader of the Iranian authorities responsible for this inhumane act. The international community, and especially the countries involved in the dialogue with Iran must condemn these executions. Anything else will send the wrong signal to the Iranian people and the authorities. The world must show that their dialogue with the Iranian authorities also benefits the human rights”. Hamed Ahmadi, Jamshid Dehghani and his younger brother Jahangir Dehghani, Kamal Molayee, Hadi Hosseini  and Sedigh Mohammadi were sentenced to death after being convicted of vaguely-worded offences including  Moharebeh (enmity against God) and “corruption on earth”. They had been subjected to torture, ill-treatment and unfair trial.   Background: Jamshid and Jahangir Dehgani (brothers), Hamed Ahmadi and Kamal Molayee were arrested in 2009. They were accused along with six others of involvement in the assassination of a senior Sunni cleric with ties to the Iranian authorities. They have denied any involvement, saying that their arrest and detention preceded the assassination by several months. They were sentenced to death by the branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, convicted of “Moharebeh” (enmity against God) and “acts against the nation’s security”. Their trial lasted about 10 minutes and they haven’t seen their lawyer, according to sources who have been in contact with Iran Human Rights (IHR). The six other prisoners were executed in December 2012, but the death sentences of the four prisoners were postponed. Their execution was scheduled to be carried out in on September 25, 2013, and June 15, 2014,  but it was postponed possibly due to the international attention. In 2014 more than 19 human rights group called on the Iranian authorities to stop the execution of 33 Sunni prisoners.