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August 3, 2007
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Halt executions, Italy tells Iran
AKI
Rome, Italy - Italy on Thursday urged Iran to stop putting people to death, citing Rome's 'deep uneasiness' with a spate of executions in the Islamic Republic in recent weeks, including those accused of being homosexuals.
"On the instruction of [Italian foreign] Minister [Massimo] D'Alema, the Farnesina (the foreign ministry) today protested to the deputy chief of Iran's embassy in Rome, Hossein Mafi Moghaddam, Italy's deep uneasiness with the executions that have been taking place in Iran over the last weeks", the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Among the executions that had prompted Italy's concern were those that "cited homosexuality as a charge" against people sentenced to death, the statement added.
"In additon real concern was expressed [to Mafi Moghaddam] for the sentencing to death of two Kurdish journalists accused of spying", the statement said.
The two Kurdish journalists, identified by international rights groups as Adnan Hassanpour and Abdolvahed Botimar, were sentenced earlier this month by a revolutionary court in Iranian Kurdistan.
Earlier on Thursday two men convicted of murdering a top Iranian judge in 2005 were hanged in public in central Tehran, the first public executions in the Iranian capital in five years.
More than 140 people have been executed in Iran so far this year, including many convicted on charges of 'hooliganism' a term authorities use to describe offences ranging from drinking alcohol - a practice banned in the Islamic Republic - to extortion, sexual harassment and abuse.
People accused of engaging in homosexual acts have also been charged with 'hooliganism'.
Last year Iran carried out 177 death sentences, according to figures published by Amnesty International..
Thousands could hang, rights activist warns
It is difficult to keep count of the amount of people being hanged in Iran in recent days, but the situation could become even worse warns human rights activist Shiva Nazar Ahari.
"Several thousand people have been arrested over the past three months, all charged with the vaguely defined crime of 'hooliganism', or described as 'socially dangerous elements' Nazar Ahari said.
"All these people risk the gallows after a summary trial in which they won't be allowed to use a lawyer to defend them", she said.
As part of the government's ongoing 'moralisation campaign' to curb practices which are not compatible with Islam, it says 16 people, described as 'hooligans', were hanged on 22 July, topping the total of 140 so far this year.
Last year Iran carried out 177 death sentences, according to figures published by Amnesty International.
The term 'hooliganism' has been used to describe offences ranging from drinking alcohol - a practice banned in the Islamic republic - to extortion, sexual harassment and abuse. People accused of engaging in homosexual acts have also been charged with 'hooliganism'.
"The relatives of these young people [most of those executed are between the ages of 20 and 30] sentenced to death for such unclear specified crimes, are only informed once their son, daughter or relative has been hanged," Nazar Ahari said.
"Only after photos [taken illicitly with a cell phone camera] of a recent mass hanging in Teheran, were published did people realise that two of those executed, both members of the [autonomist inclined] Bakhatari tribe, had been in prison for the last eight years after being arrested for 'armed resistance'," she said.
"From the information we obtained in Tehran, it appears many of the young people arrested in over the last three months are being held in the Kharizak detention centre situated on the outskirts of the capital.
"Up to 40 prisoners are forced to share a 15-square metre cell, and are given just one meal a day. Often they are also lashed," she said.
"We've also received reports six of these prisoners, aged between 20 and 25, died of infections related to the lashings they had been subjected to", Nazar Ahari said.
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