"The European Union learnt with grave concern of the death sentences passed on Farzad KAMANGAR, Farhad VAKILI, Ali HEIDARIAN, Hivar BOTIMAR and Anvar Hosein PANOHI."
There have been a number of demonstrations held in Iranian Kurdistan in support of the political prisoners. The last was on August 1 in northwestern city of Kamyaran when a large crowd, in a symbolic gesture, marched from Farzad Kamangar's house to a small village, Marab, where he used to teach. His mother joined the local residents marching in support of his son.
A few miles outside the city, the State Security Forces (SSF) – mullahs' suppressive police – caught up with the marchers and forced them to board the SSF buses back to Kamyaran. The agents did not allow the citizens to return on foot fearing a more widespread demonstration. The SSF seized the protesters cell phones and cameras.
The Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) arrested Kamangar in Tehran in July 2006 and held him in various detention centers in Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and Tehran.
During a period of detention in Ward 209 of the notorious Evin Prison — run by the MOIS — in August 2006, officials tortured him to such an extent that they had to transfer him to the prison clinic to receive medical attention. He was severely tortured and was subject to ill-treatment while in detention in the cities of Sanandaj in Kurdistan province and Kermanshah.
The mullahs' Supreme Court upheld an earlier death sentence by a lower court for three Kurdish political activists Farzad Kamangar, Ali Heidarian and Farhad Vakili on Friday. The three were first arrested in April 2006 and tried in the lower court in February 2007.
The European Union called on the mullahs' regime to "fulfill its international human rights obligations, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination – to both of which Iran is a party – for the benefit of all people in Iran irrespective of sex or sexual orientation, ethnic origin, religion or conviction."