Iran: halt execution of political dissident

Jurist

Amnesty International (AI) on May 31 urged Iran not to execute a political dissident convicted of "enmity against God." Gholamreza Khosravi Savajani was sentenced to death in 2010 on the charge of "enmity against God" for his alleged links with a banned opposition group, the People's Mojahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI). Family members of Gholamreza Khosravi fear that he may be executed as soon as June 1, after they were informed by prison officials that they must go to the prison in order to meet him outside of regular visitation hours. Khosravi is currently being held in solitary confinement, which according to AI, is in conformity with Iran's practice of placing prisoners in solitary units before their executions take place. "Yet again Iranian authorities are about to execute a man who did not even receive a fair trial in total disregard of both international and Iranian Law," said AI's deputy director for the Middle East, Hassiba Hadj Saharoui. Under the new Islamic Penal Code, the charge of "enmity against God" imposes the death penalty only for those who have actively taken up arms.

Iran's human rights record has been a constant source of international concern. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran in April urged Iran to immediately halt the execution of Reyhaneh Jabbari, who was sentenced to death for murdering a man who allegedly sexually assaulted her. In February, UN rights experts expressed concern over the recent spike in executions in Iran. In January, AI released a report finding that the Iranian government had executed 40 individuals since the beginning of 2014 and carried out 625 executions in 2013.

From Jurist, June 1. Used with permission.

  1. Gholamreza Khosravi Savajani secretly buried

    A statement from the National Council of Resistance of Iran, June 1, via Iran News Update:

    On Sunday midnight, June 1, six agents from the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) secretly buried Gholamreza Khosravi of the PMOI in the Isfahan Bagh-e-Rezvan Cemetery.

    Subsequent to hanging Gholamreza, the mullahs’ henchmen not only refused to hand over his corpse to his family who had spent all the night in front of the Gohardasht prison, but ruthlessly and by resorting to deceit, provided contradictory answers to his family and referred them to places like the Evin Prison and the Prosecutors’ Office to exacerbate the pain and suffering of the grieving family.

    In reality, in fear of public protest and outrage, Gholamerza's corpse was surreptitiously transferred to Isfahan (440 Kilometers away from Tehran).

    The efforts of his family to get his corpse were futile. And at midnight Gholamreza was secretly buried in Isfahan Bagh-e-Rezvan Cemetery. The MOIS offices in Tehran and Isfahan have warned that nobody is allowed to hold a funeral procession or to publish a report regarding the location and the way of his burial.