From: hnaylor@igc.apc.org (Hilary Naylor)
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: IRAN: political executions
Date: 14 Dec 92 03:10:00 GMT
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Organization: ?
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Resent-From: Hilary Naylor <hnaylor@igc.apc.org>

/* Written  7:10 pm  Dec 13, 1992 by hnaylor@igc.apc.org in igc:ai.general */
/* ---------- "IRAN: political executions" ---------- */
Amnesty International      
International Secretariat  
1 Easton Street            
London WC1X 8DJ            
United Kingdom             

DATE: 7 DECEMBER 1992

IRAN:  AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED AT CONTINUING POLITICAL EXECUTIONS 

Amnesty International has received information that three members of the
Mohajerin Organization of Iran were executed in Iran approximately two months
ago.  The organization fears that at least 20 other prisoners, also members of
the Mohajerin Organization of Iran, may be at risk of execution.

      The three men - Ali Reza Hamidabad, 36; Hamid Kord, 32; and Gholam Reza
Sagvand, 37; were followers of Dr Ali Shariati and had been arrested about two
years ago.  They spent most of their imprisonment in Dezful Prison, where
their executions are believed to have taken place.  They were all reported to
have been tried in secret, but no further information about their trials is
available. 

      In February Amnesty International asked the Iranian authorities for
information about the three prisoners, and others, and said it wished to send
an observer to their trial. However, the Iranian authorities did not respond
and have consistently denied that any followers of Dr Ali Shariati have been
imprisoned since the Islamic Republic was founded. 

      The three are the latest in a number of political suspects to be
executed in Iran. Others have included members of Kurdish organizations, such
as Komala and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).  

      In a statement reported on 7 November, the Information and Security
Minister, Hojatoleslam Ali Fallahian, said that Iranian intelligence services
had arrested an official of the "Marxist Komala movement" and that a military
group backed by "counter-revolutionary elements" in Iran had been dissolved
and its members executed. The names of the victims are not known. 

      Two brothers, Rahman and Towfiq Aliasi, who were members of Komala, were
executed in Sanandaj in June and August 1992 respectively.  There has been no
information about their trials, and the precise dates of their executions are
unknown. The brothers had been arrested in September 1991, in a village in the
Mariwan area, close to the Iraq border, and were imprisoned in Sanandaj Prison
in Iranian Kurdistan.  

      Televised "confessions" of Towfiq Aliasi are reported to have been
broadcast on local television in Sanandaj in August.  Amnesty International
fears that the confessions may have been obtained as a result of torture or
coercion, and that they will not have had a fair trial.  

      An alleged KDPI supporter, Hussein Mouloudi, is reported to have been
executed in public in Orumiyeh in October 1992.  No information is available
about his trial.  He had reportedly been imprisoned for two years in different
prisons. 

      Dr Ali Mozaffarian, a well known surgeon and one of the leaders of the
Sunni Muslim community in Fars province in southern Iran, was executed in
Shiraz at the beginning of August 1992.  He had been convicted of spying for
the United States and Iraq, adultery and sodomy.  His video taped
"confessions", which may have been obtained as a result of physical or
psychological pressure, were broadcast on television in Shiraz and in the
streets of Kazerun and Lar.

      Dr Mozaffarian was arrested in his office in late 1991, a day after he
and other Sunni leaders had attended a meeting in the house of Shiraz's Friday
Prayer cleric, Ayatollah Haeri, to discuss deteriorating Sunni/Shi'a relations
in Fars.  Reportedly, his arrest was in connection with his refusal to take
part in a "unity prayer" and his outspoken opposition to the government. He
was executed following riots in Shiraz in August 1992.  According to official
reports, Dr Mozaffarian was tried in Shiraz, but no information about the
proceedings is available.  Amnesty International believes that his trial may
have been unfair.        

      Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, but an
added concern in Iran is that it is frequently imposed on political suspects
and others whose trials fail to meet international fair trial standards. In
political cases, trials often last only a few minutes, the accused has no
access to legal counsel at any stage; is denied both the right to appeal
against conviction and sentence; and is denied any opportunity to seek
commutation of his/her sentence.

      Amnesty International is also concerned by the use of televised
confessions, apparently intended to discredit political suspects and which
further undermines the possibilities of their receiving a fair trial.
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive