The Iranian regime’s henchmen have hanged 17 people in various cities on the brink of the 30th anniversary of the anti-monarchical revolution in Iran.
On Saturday, January 31, 2009, a prisoner identified as Heshmat in Kazeroun was hanged (state-run daily ‘Iran’), while two others were executed in Shiraz’s Adel Abad prison (state-run daily Etemad). According to reports from government sources, on Thursday, January 29, in an inhumane act, the regime’s henchmen hanged a 35-year-old woman who had spent 12 years in Rafsanjan prison. Two prisoners identified as Reza Adel from the Youth Ward of Isfahan’s Dastgerd prison and Ahmad Abed Ebrahimi, 34, from Ward 4 of Isfahan’s Central prison, were hanged by the regime on Wednesday, January 28.
On Tuesday, four other prisoners were sent to the gallows in Mashhad (state-run daily Qods). A prisoner identified as Hassan A. was also hanged in Fars province (iscanews state-sponsored website affiliated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, January 27, 2009).
Meanwhile, 6 other victims were hanged in North Khorasan province on January 25 (IRNA, January 25, 2009).
As such, without taking into account prisoners who have faced cruel punishments such as stoning or limb amputations, the number of prisoners hanged in the first month of 2009 has reached 59. In reality, this represents only a fraction of the frightening number of hangings which are reported in state-run media. The real number of murders occurring in prisons of the religious fascism ruling Iran is much higher.
It should also be mentioned that in the past week the mullah Judiciary’s torturers have issued sentences for the hanging and imprisonment of three members of a single family as well as the hanging of another young person in Tehran.
At the same time, on January 27, in a suspicious incident, Nabi Pir-Mohammadi, 22, an anthropology student studying at Tehran University and originally from Lorestan province, was thrown off the fourth floor of the library building and died due to brain hemorrhage.
The regime’s intensification of suppression is a fearful reaction to mounting protests and increasing domestic and international crises.
The Iranian Resistance calls on all human rights organizations and authorities, especially the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to condemn the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran, and stresses that referring the dossier of human rights abuses and deplorable prison conditions in Iran to the UN Security Council for adoption of binding measures is more necessary than any other time.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 2, 2009