Do not execute four Ahwazi Arabs from Falahiya (Shadegan)

Iran continues to violate human rights against its Arabs citizens as it seven cultural activists from Ahwaz in southern Iran face the death penalty since September 2012 (case no. 901043630040079).

The Judicial Council in Iran has approved the death sentence issued by the Revolutionary Court in Ahwaz against four Arab prisoners from Falahiya (Shadegan). The ratification of death sentence has signed by the Judge Reza Faraj Ulahi, the head division 32 of the Iranian Supreme Judicial Court in Tehran and advisor Sayed Ali Asghar Latifi Roustami on13th February 2013 and families of the prisoners have been informed on 13th of July 2013.

The four Ahwaz Arab prisoners named as follow:
Ghazi Abbasi (D.O.B 1982), Jassim Mughadem Payam (D.O.B 1985) , Abdulameer Majdami (D.O.B 1980 ) and Abdulreda Ameer Khanafra (D.O.B 1987) were all arrested in 2009 based on unpublished Iranian Intelligence reports according to which the activists are ‘waging war against God and spreading corruption’. The other three, namely Hadi Albokhanfer Nejad, Shehab Abbasi and Sami Jedmawi Nejad are imprisoned for over 3 years and had recently been expelled to Ardebil prison.

The former four activists had recently leaked a letter to their families from the inside of Iranian Intelligence prisons calling for help as they are facing both physical and psychological torture on the hands of the Iranian government. According to an official weapons expert (Ali Metri) who was responsible for the prisoners’ case, no bullets were aimed in or at any government institutions and/or its employees and the activists had murdered no one whatsoever. The Iranian regime disregarded Metri’s report and assigned another expert to condemn the activists and justify the sentence.

International organizations at many occasions had condemned the execution of Ahwazi Arabs in Iran, an oppressed and systematically cleansed minority that constitutes the vast majority of Ahwaz province population in the eastern Gulf coast. Iran never listened, and never showed mercy to its Arab citizens and continued to execute activists one after another. It is time to take collective action and condemn Iran firmly and loudly with faith that the world’s cries will be heard this time, and the activists will return to their families safe and sound.

We urge your respectful organization to condemn and help save the innocent activists whom only crime was communicating with the outside world about the torture and oppression their people face in Iran everyday.

Yours truly,
EAHRO
European Ahwazi Human Rights Organization