TEHRAN: Iran executed three alleged Kurdish separatists on Saturday, local media reported, despite criticism by the United Nations that at least one had been tortured in prison. Ramin Hossein Panahi, Zaniar Moradi and Loghman Moradi were all executed on Saturday, according to the conservative Fars news agency. It said Panahi had planned to bomb a rally in Iran’s Kurdish province last June. Zaniar and Loghman Moradi were accused of membership in an unnamed “terrorist separatist group” and of killing four people, including the son of the Friday prayers leader in the Kurdish city of Mariwan. Panahi was accused of membership in Komala, which has been waging a long-running separatist insurgency in Iranian Kurdistan from bases across the border in Iraq. He was sentenced to death in April, drawing criticism from UN human rights experts, who said his execution “would be unconscionable”.“We are deeply disturbed by reports that Mr. Panahi has suffered human rights violations before and during his trial, including incommunicado detention, torture and ill-treatment, and denial of access to a lawyer and adequate medical care,” they said in a report at the time.They pointed to reports that Panahi had been denied medical care for injuries suffered during his imprisonment, including from reported beating with cables.He had also reportedly started a hunger strike at the beginning of this year in the Rajaei-Shahr prison in Karaj, near Tehran. </s> GENEVA (Reuters) - Iran executed three Iranian Kurdish men accused of belonging to a militant group and taking part in attacks against civilians and security forces in the Kurdish region of western Iran, the judiciary’s news service reported on Saturday.

The executions took place despite a call on Friday for them to be halted by two U.N. human rights special rapporteurs, Javaid Rehman and Agnes Callamard, who said in a statement that the men had not been given a fair trial.

Amnesty International said the accused men had been denied access to their lawyers after being arrested and had said they were tortured into making confessions.

“We are horrified by the news that the Iranian authorities have executed these men, despite widespread condemnation of their death sentences and calls from U.N. human rights experts and other bodies to halt their executions,” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s research and advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement on Saturday.

The judiciary’s Mizan news service said Loqman Moradi and Zanyar Moradi were accused of carrying out an attack in the western town of Marivan in July 2009 that killed three people, including the son of a prominent cleric.

Ramin Hossein Panahi was accused of participating in an assault targeting security forces in the town of Sanandaj in June 2017.

Iran has one of the world’s highest execution rates. According to Amnesty International, 51 percent of all recorded executions in 2017 were carried out in Iran. </s> The United Nations is calling on Iran to halt the violent executions of three Kurdish men on September 8.

The Islamic Republic vows to execute cousins Zanyar and Loghman Moradi, and Ramin Hossein Panahi on Saturday.

"We urge the Government of Iran to immediately halt their executions and to annul the death sentences against them in compliance with its international obligations," said Agnes Callamard and Javaid Rehman, Special Rapporteurs from the UN.

According to the the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Zanyar and Loghman Moradi are accused of the 2009 murder of the son of an Islamic cleric in Marivan, Kurdistan province. Iranian authorities later arrested Panahi last June for his alleged membership in a Kurdish nationalist group.

All three of the men reportedly faced severe torture in prison.

Zanyar and Loghman Moradi were also severely beaten, tied up in stress positions and threatened with rape, if they did not confess to the murder. The pair were brought before the revolutionary court in December 2010 the capital Tehran where they were sentenced to death by public hanging. The trial "apparently lasted only 20 minutes."

"During the trial, they both denied the charges in court and explained that they had confessed to the crimes only due to torture following their initial arrest," said OHCHR. "We are alarmed by information received that Zanyar and Loghman Moradi suffered human rights violations before and during their trial, including torture and other ill-treatment and denial of access to a lawyer,"

Panahi was also repeatedly beaten in detention, denied medical care, access to a lawyer, and was held in solitary confinement until January.

The men's families are heartbroken and pray for their urgent release.

The three Kurds have been denied access to their families and two of them were put in solitary confinement on September 5. Experts believe their death is near.

Iran is one of the worst human rights abusers in the world and the United Nations, activists, and faith-based organizations have repeatedly condemned its actions. </s> Relatives of three Iranian Kurdish activists sentenced to death by Iranian courts say they have learned that authorities were preparing to execute at least two of the young men by Saturday.

In a video message filmed on Friday and sent exclusively to VOA Persian, the mother of one of the jailed men and a brother of one of the other activists issued a joint appeal to the international community to stop Iran from carrying out imminent executions of all three of them.

The video was filmed in the northwestern Iranian city of Marivan at the home of Ameneh Ghaderi, mother of Zaniar Moradi, one of the men sentenced to death. The other two condemned activists include Zaniar’s cousin, Loghman Moradi, and Ramin Hossein Panahi, whose brother Amjad Hossein Panahi appeared in the video, sitting alongside Ghaderi.

Video message from relatives of Iranian Kurdish activists sentenced to death, broadcast on VOA Persian’s NewsHour program:

Speaking to the camera, Amjad Hossein Panahi said he and Ghaderi received a message that authorities wanted family members to visit the three men immediately at Rajaei Shahr prison in Karaj, on the western outskirts of Tehran. “We heard unfortunate news that when family members come to see Zaniar and Loghman, it would be the last meeting, while there has been no news about Ramin since Thursday,” he said. “We were told from various sources that they were going to be hanged either Friday night or Saturday morning.”

Ghaderi said that for the past two days, she has heard warnings that authorities were going to execute the young men. “Please, don’t let them execute our children,” she said.

In a Friday statement, the Britain-based rights group Amnesty International called on Iran to “immediately halt” what it said was the planned executions of Zaniar and Loghman Moradi. The two cousins have spent eight years on death row since confessing to a 2009 killing of the son of a Muslim cleric in Marivan — a confession that both men later said was extracted under torture, according to Amnesty. The rights group said Rajaei Shahr prison authorities moved the cousins from a general ward to solitary confinement on Wednesday and telephoned the men’s families on Thursday, instructing the relatives to visit the detainees immediately. It said those moves sparked fears that their executions were imminent.

Amnesty said Ramin Hossein Panahi began a hunger strike at Rajaei Shahr prison on August 26 by sewing his lips together in protest at his death sentence. It said he was immediately removed from the prison’s general ward and had not been heard from since, prompting concerns that he also was at imminent risk of execution.

Panahi was sentenced to death in January for allegedly drawing a weapon against Iranian security forces operating in northwestern Iran’s predominantly ethnic Kurdish region in June 2017. He confessed to taking up arms against the state, but Amnesty said family members who saw him in court believe he also was tortured into confessing because of apparent torture marks on his body.

Iranian authorities also charged all three men with being members of Komala, a Kurdish nationalist group banned in Iran. Amnesty has denounced their trials as “grossly unfair” proceedings that lasted less than an hour.

A provincial Iranian state TV station, Network 5, broadcasted a report on Friday, quoting Iran’s Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) as saying family members of the Moradi cousins were concerned that the two men could be executed on Saturday. But there has been no comment from Iranian officials in state media about the situation of the three Kurdish activists.

“We ask of whoever is listening, do not leave us alone at this crucial moment,” Amjad Hossein Panahi said, as he concluded the video message. “Defend Zaniar, Loghman and Ramin. Your efforts could lead to a stay of execution.” </s> The Turkish government has handed over Iranian opposition journalist Arash Sohashargh to the Tehran regime, according to a report by online news outlet Artı Gerçek.

Columnist Yıldız Candan wrote for Artı Gerçek that Sohashargh, who was accused by Tehran of opposing the regime and who sought asylum in Turkey last year, is being held in a prison in Gilan province. Candan said Sohashargh had been followed by Iranian intelligence, citing the jailed journalist’s family members.

According to Candan’s article, Sohashargh’s family became alarmed when he went missing in the Turkish province of Van in February 2018 despite the fact that the Iranian journalist was under the protection of the United Nations. “If these allegations are true, then there was unlawful cooperation between Turkey and Iran with regard to the extradition of an opposition member,’’ Candan noted.

Iran is accused of the arbitrary arrest and detention of journalists’ family members and the confiscation of passports and travel bans preventing people from leaving Iran as well as the ongoing surveillance of journalists and their families.

Meanwhile, Turkish police on Monday physically prevented pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputies from laying a black wreath in front of the Embassy of Iran in Ankara to protest the imminent execution of Kurdish prisoner Ramin Hossein Panahi.

During an ensuing scuffle, police manhandled HDP deputy Filiz Kerestecioğlu, who wanted to make a statement and grabbed a banner another woman was carrying, according to a report by Kurdistan 24. Police forcefully dispersed the group and also arrested four people who were participating in the demonstration against Panahi’s expected execution, beating one to the ground.

In a statement made by the HDP, Kerestecioglu said the conduct of the Turkish police meant Ankara supported the Tehran government’s policy of executing political prisoners. Appearing along with deputies Saliha Aydeniz and Dirayet Taşdemir, she condemned both states.

“This is the approval of oppression, fascism and capital punishment. They [Turkish authorities] only know how to attack. We do not know what kind of dirty bargains they have with Iran. But we, as deputies, know very well the right to peaceful protest is enshrined in the law,” she said.

An Iranian court in Kurdistan Province sentenced Panahi to death earlier this year for taking up arms against the state.

The HDP’s co-leader Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli, meanwhile, for the second time in two months, penned a letter to Iran’s Ambassador Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian Fard, urging his country to halt the carrying out of Panahi’s death sentence.

“If Israel were ever to announce it was going to execute a young Arab man, these low-lives would bring the sky down,” Botan tweeted.

On Monday Panahi’s brother, Amjad Hossein Panahi, said Iranian authorities could carry out the execution within 48 hours.

Turkey is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). If Turkey falls two more places, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the poorest record in press freedom.

Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 237 journalists and media workers were in jail as of September 2, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 169 were under arrest pending trial while only 68 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 145 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.

Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down some 200 media outlets, including Kurdish news agencies and newspapers, after a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016. </s> TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran executed eight men convicted over the 2017 Islamic State attack on parliament and the shrine of the Islamic Republic’s founding ayatollah, the bloodiest terror attack to strike Tehran in decades, authorities said Saturday.

The June 7, 2017 attack has so far been the only assault by the Sunni extremists inside of Shiite Iran, which has been deeply involved in the wars in Iraq and Syria where the militants once held vast territory. IS has since have been beaten back by Iranian-aided Shiite militias in Iraq, as well as by a U.S.-led coalition operating in both countries, though Iran has made other arrests involving the group in the time since.

The judiciary’s official Mizan news agency announced the executions Saturday morning, but did not say when or where they took place. The head of Tehran’s Justice Department, Gholamhossein Esmaili, told Iranian state television that authorities conducted the executions days earlier but chose not to immediately announce them, likely as a security measure.

Executions in Iran are carried out by hangings.

Mizan noted in its report that the executions came after the eight men had been tried and convicted in a trial that included both eyewitness testimony and video footage showing their involvement by providing the attackers support in the days leading up to the assault.

“These eight worked directly … in martyring and wounding a number of innocent compatriots,” Mizan said.

The news agencies on Saturday named those executed as Soleiman Mozafari, Esmail Sufi, Rahman Behrouz, Majed Mortezai, Sirous Azizi, Ayoub Esmaili, Khosro Ramezani and Osman Behrouz. Over a dozen others remain on trial over the attack.

While Iran is one of the world’s top enforcers of the death penalty, such mass executions are rare. In August 2016, human rights activists criticized Iran for carrying out the mass execution of 20 convicted Sunni militants from a group identified as Jihad and Tawhid after a six-year trial. In August 2007, Iran hanged seven men convicted of rape in Mashhad at the same time.

The June 2017 Islamic State attack killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 50. It saw gunmen carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and explosives storm the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress, starting an hours-long siege.

Meanwhile, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum on Tehran’s southern outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran’s first supreme leader until his death in 1989.

The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the years-long tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution. The image of a child being passed out of a window at parliament under the watch of armed security forces remains seared in the minds of many.

Iran’s security forces responded with heavy force. Authorities arrested suspected IS militants, including their wives. In August 2017, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said it detained 27 militants linked to the Islamic State group who planned to attack holy Shiite cities within the country.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard responded to the attack by launching six ballistic missiles into eastern Syria targeting IS militants. It marked the first time Iran had fired its missiles in anger since its 1980s war with Iraq.

That raised new concerns in the West about its ballistic missile program amid the unraveling of its nuclear deal with world powers. That deal is now in danger of collapse with America’s withdrawal from the accord. Economic problems, water scarcity and other woes meanwhile have led to protests in Iran.

Iran remains one of the world’s top executioners. It was second only to China in 2017 in the number of known executions carried out, conducting over 500 hangings, according to Amnesty International.

The IS executions come as controversy still swirls in Iran around the country’s mass executions of 1988 near the end of the Iran-Iraq War. Activists at the time said Iran executed as many as 5,000 people after sham trials of Communists, Kurdish separatists, political prisoners and members of an Iranian exile group known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq.

Those executions represent one of the darkest moments of Iran’s post-revolution history and are still not recognized by its government.

Copyright © 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed. </s> (Hatha al-Youm | Iraq News )- ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Rights groups and the European Parliament expressed outrage following the chilling news from Tehran that the outspoken Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to 38 years in prison in a “Kafkaesque trial” for her human rights work.Sotoudeh’s husband Reza Khandan published the news on his Facebook page on March 11 which prompted Amnesty International to state: “This is the harshest sentence Amnesty International has documented against a human rights defender in Iran in recent years, suggesting that the authorities – emboldened by pervasive impunity for human rights violations – are stepping up their repression.” Sotoudeh, a former political prisoner, has campaigned tirelessly against the death penalty and defended many human rights activists, women and rights campaigners from ethnic minorities is respected internationally for her dedication to human rights.A shocking 38 years in prison for Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh for defending women who didn't want to wear mandatory headscarves and other such "outrages." https://t.co/qKIFpJWSRe pic.twitter.com/JrokmeYl8v— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) March 11, 2019She was arrested in June and was informed this week that she had been found guilty of seven charges and sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes. The vague charges included “Inciting corruption and prostitution,” “openly committing a sinful act by … appearing in public without a hijab” and “disrupting public order.” The judge used his discretion to apply more than the maximum sentence in her case.Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament said on Twitter “I strongly condemn utterly outrageous Iranian government sentence passed against #SakharovPrize laureate, Nasrin Sotoudeh. She's dedicated her life to defending women's rights and speaking out against the #deathpenalty. The @Europarl_EN stands with her – at Le Parlement Européen”Local human rights organizations have also criticized the lack of a proper trial in-line with international norms.“Sotoudeh has been sentenced in a Kafkaesque trial severely lacking in international standards of due process,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). “The Iranian Judiciary is punishing Sotoudeh for trying to uphold the rule of law and the right to a fair defense in cases involving defendants facing politically motivated charges,” he added. Sotoudeh won the European Parliament Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2012 while in prison for not bowing to “fear and intimidation.” She was jailed from 2010 to 2013 on charges of propaganda and conspiring to harm the establishment’s security.“The EU expects an immediate review of her sentence as well as the conviction of her husband Reza Khandan, who was sentenced to 6 years' imprisonment in January 2019. The European Union also expects Iran to ensure that both Mr. Khandan and Ms. Sotoudeh's right to appeal their sentences is protected,” the spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union, Maja Kocijancic, said in a statement. She has been targeted by the state since 2009 when she was an advisor to reformist Mehdi Karroubi during the presidential election. Then she was arrested and detained for three years after being charged with anti-state propaganda. Her most recent detainment began in June 2018, according to CHRI, because she represented a woman facing imprisonment for peacefully protesting the country's compulsory hijab law.Shahidi has also sued the Iranian judiciary for banning her from seeing her family and children while she has been jailed in the notorious Evin Prison. </s> The condemning of 15 people to death by the Specialized Criminal Court today after a grossly unfair trial is a travesty of justice and a serious violation of human rights, said Amnesty International.

The men were among 32 people arrested across Saudi Arabia in 2013 and 2014 who were accused of spying for Iran. Fifteen others were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six months to 25 years and two were acquitted.

The men were charged with a series of offences including “high treason” with some facing several other ludicrous charges which should not be considered criminal offences such as “supporting protests”, “spreading the Shi’a faith” and “possessing banned books and videos”.

“Sentencing 15 people to death after a farcical trial which flouted basic fair trial standards is a slap in the face for justice. Time and again, Saudi Arabia’s justice system has been proven to be incapable of ensuring fairness and justice,” said Samah Hadid, Deputy Director for Campaigns at Amnesty International’s Beirut regional office.

“The death penalty is cruel, inhuman and degrading in any circumstances but it is even more shocking when people are sentenced to death after blatantly unfair trials. These death sentences must be immediately quashed and the accused must either be re-tried in line with international standards without resorting to the death penalty, or released.”

Sentencing 15 people to death after a farcical trial which flouted basic fair trial standards is a slap in the face for justice Samah Hadid, Deputy Director for Campaigns at the Beirut Regional office

Those convicted were all Saudi Arabian nationals except for one Iranian national who was sentenced to four years in prison. An Afghan national was one of the two men acquitted.

According to Taha al-Hajji, one of the lawyers who represented most of the accused, all 32 men arrested were detained without an arrest warrant and held for almost three months in incommunicado detention where they were repeatedly interrogated without a lawyer, heightening the risk that they could face torture and other ill-treatment. In many cases they only discovered the reason for their arrest during their interrogations.

Some told the court that they were threatened with solitary confinement and that they would be banned from having any contact with their families if they did not sign “confession” documents. They said they were told that if they refused to sign these “confessions” that their families would be imprisoned and locked in cells next to them.

After almost three years in detention without charge or trial the defendants were suddenly brought before the Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh -

Saudi Arabia’s secretive security and counter-terrorism court in February 2016. Most of them attended their first session without any lawyers and the rest met their lawyers briefly for the first time in court. Some of the defendants had to prepare their defence themselves.

“The entire legal proceedings in this case have made a mockery of justice. The fact that the men were held incommunicado for three months, denied access to a lawyer during the interrogations, and that the court failed to adequately investigate the men’s claims that they were coerced to ‘confess’ makes this little more than a sham trial,” said Samah Hadid.

The entire legal proceedings in this case have made a mockery of justice Samah Hadid, Deputy Director for Campaigns at the Beirut Regional office

While the General Prosecutor had almost three years to build the case against the 32 defendants, their lawyers were given less than a month to prepare their defence after the first hearing and were denied crucial information to enable them to prepare a proper case.

The lawyers complained saying they needed more time since it was a very complex case with 32 defendants involved, however, the request was ignored by the judge. They were initially denied access to court documents and key evidence relied upon for the convictions, including the forced “confessions” of the men.

During the first session in February 2016, the 32 defendants were handed a list of charges that was nearly 100 pages long. Most of the defendants were accused of offences such as “high treason” for either setting up or joining a spy cell or meeting with Iranian intelligence and sharing military and security information with them.

However, some of the other charges listed against the men are not recognizably criminal offences under international standards. These include “supporting protests”, “spreading the Shi’a faith” for example by setting up a Shi’a centre in Mecca, “possessing banned books and videos”, “inciting the public to break allegiance to the ruler and harm his reputation and the reputation of the royal family” among other charges.

One defendant, who is among those sentenced to death, even faced charges for possessing articles written by Mikhlif al-Shammari a prominent human rights defender and advocate for Saudi Arabia’s Shi’a Muslim community who was sentenced to prison and 200 lashes for his activism.

It is not the first time a Saudi Arabian court has issued death sentences after an unfair mass trial. On 1 June 2016, 14 Shi’a Muslim men were sentenced to death by the Specialized Criminal Court after a trial which relied on “confessions” extracted through torture for a series of offences including among other things, taking part in violent protests in the Eastern Provinces in 2012.

Trials before the Specialized Criminal Court are shrouded in secrecy. Given the opaque procedures at these courts, in some cases simply being brought to trial appears to be enough grounds for judges to find the accused guilty.

In a letter submitted to the Specialized Criminal Court at the second session several of the lawyers said they would boycott the trial in protest the manner in which the trial was being conducted including the fact that they were not allowed to visit their clients, view evidence and prepare their defence adequately. The lawyers also objected to the “media war” waged against the defendants. The Saudi Arabian authorities do not allow any critical or independent media to operate in the Kingdom. </s> WASHINGTON -- The United States has condemned Tehran for the “unconscionable” death of a hunger-striking Iranian political activist who had been jailed for messages he wrote on social media.

In a statement on December 13, State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said Vahid Sayadi Nasiri, who died on December 12, had been “arbitrarily detained” by Iranian authorities after his arrest four months ago.

Nasiri had “no access to legal counsel, was held in inhumane conditions, and was charged with spurious national security offences such as ‘insulting the Supreme Leader,’” the statement said.

Nasiri’s sister, Elaheh, told RFE/RL that the authorities had informed the family that the activist had died in a hospital in the city of Qom.

She said her brother went on hunger strike to protest against the conditions of his imprisonment and to demand his transfer from a high-security unit of a prison in Qom to Tehran’s Evin prison.

Nasiri was initially arrested in September 2015 and sentenced to eight years in prison for “insulting” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and "propaganda against the state," according to the U.S.-based advocacy group Iran Human Rights Monitor.

The charges stemmed from posts he had made on his Facebook page.

Nasiri was released early in March after serving 2 1/2 years in prison, but was arrested again in August, reportedly on similar charges.

The State Department statement said he was “just one of many more unjustly detained prisoners held at the mercy of the Iranian regime’s whims.”

“The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the Iranian regime for its unceasingly flagrant human rights violations,” it said.

“We demand that the regime stops subjecting Iranians who are peacefully voicing their opinions to brutal conditions and slow deaths and that it release all those unjustly imprisoned,” it added.

The statement referred to two other detainees, Farhad Meysami -- who it said was also on hunger strike -- and Nasrin Sotoudeh.

Meysami, a medical doctor, was detained in July for supporting women protesting against the hijab law that forces them to cover their hair and body in public.

He has been reportedly on a hunger strike since August to protest the charges he faces and also the lack of access to a lawyer of his choosing. He reportedly is being held in a medical clinic at Evin prison, where he is being force-fed intravenously.

Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer, was arrested in June after she represented several of the women detained for removing their head scarves in public to protest against the country’s Islamic dress code.

The European Parliament on December 13 overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the Iranian government to “immediately and unconditionally” release Sotoudeh.

Sotoudeh -- the co-winner of the European Parliament's 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought -- has denied all charges against her.
Iran's judiciary executes three Iranian Kurdish prisoners, including Ramin Panahi, for terrorism offences. Two United Nations special rapporteurs condemn the executions and Amnesty International alleges their trials were unfair, due to the denial of legal counsel and confessions obtained through torture.