Kurdish MPs ask Iran to reconsider death penalties
Updated: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Photographer: WashingtonTV
Majlis floor
12:00GMT—7:00AM/EST
Washington, 17 November (WashingtonTV)—A number of Iran’s Kurdish lawmakers have asked the country’s judiciary to reconsider issuing death sentences on members of Iran Kurdish minority, the Iran Labor News Agency [ILNA] reported on Tuesday.
The request was made in a letter by an unspecified number of lawmakers to Judiciary chief, Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani.
In the letter, they voiced concern over the execution of Kurdish activist Ehsan Fatahian, who was hanged last Wednesday in a prison in the western city of Sanandaj, capital of the Kurdistan Province.
The lawmakers noted that Fatahian had initially been sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of “armed struggle against the regime”, but after he appealed the verdict, an appeals court changed the sentence to death.
“The issuing of death penalties against a few other young Kurds imprisoned in different regions has created mounting concerns across Kurdistan Province,” they wrote.
The lawmakers stressed that the government should not act in a manner that creates distance between the Kurdish community and the system.
“So we earnestly ask that you issue the necessary orders regarding the repeal of the issued death sentences, after taking into consideration the global situation,” they wrote.
According to Amnesty International, two other Kurdish men are feared to be at imminent risk of execution in Iran.
Kurds make up around seven percent of Iran’s population of nearly 70 million people.
Sources: ILNA, Amnesty International
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