Iran on Monday carried out the death sentence of four Kurdish political prisoners, Mohsen Mazloum, Mohammad Faramarzi, Vafa Azarbar, and Pejman Fatehi. All four were members of the Komala party, one of the several Kurdish opposition groups outlawed by Iran.
General strikes were held in protest of the executions at bazaars in the cities of Mahabad, Dehgolan, Marivan, Divandarreh, Kermanshah, Bukan, Saqqez, Sanandaj and Sarvabad, according to photos and videos published on Kurdish social media in Iran.
Hengaw Organziation for Human Rights reported that Iranian authorities are refusing to hand over the prisoners’ bodies to their families, causing further uproar among the public and civil society members.
Videos also depicted large numbers of people visiting the houses of the executed prisoners’ families in Bukan, Dehgolan, Kamyaran, and Mahabad to pay their respects and express solidarity with them.
Internet and telephone services were disrupted in many of Iran’s Kurdish cities, and helicopters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are patrolling the sky in several cities as well, according to Hengaw. A large number of security forces have been deployed to the areas where the strikes are being held.
Komala and other opposition groups have been accused by the Islamic republic of fueling protests and inciting unrest in the country.
Iran consistently ranks as one of the countries with the highest rate of known executions around the world. Many of those who are executed in Iran are convicted based on confessions condemned by rights groups as being often obtained under duress.
Amnesty International slammed Iran for the execution of the four Kurdish prisoners, decrying that the death penalties were carried out following “a grossly unfair secret trial.”
“The international community must condemn Iranian authorities' killing spree and intensified use of the death penalty as a tool of repression, and press for an immediate moratorium on executions, pending full abolition,” said the international rights monitor.
In December, Hengaw reported that Iranian prisons had executed 144 Kurdish prisoners in 2023, a significant rise from 2022, in which Iran executed 52 Kurdish prisoners.
.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
