Jeenoo Mokri

Over 250 activists in the civil, political, student and women’s fields have issued a public ‎statement in which they have protested the death sentences issued for three Kurdish ‎activists Farzad Kamangir, Farhad Vakili and Ali Heydarian, while also condemning the ‎tortures that they have been subjected to in prison, calling on officials to rescind the ‎judgments. ‎

Recently, a revolutionary court in Iran sentenced these three activists who had been in ‎prison for 17 months to be executed on chares of “acting against state security” and being ‎a “mohareb” (loosely translated as “at war with God”).‎

The signatories of the statement also made reference to acts of torture that the detainees ‎had been subjected to and stressed their concern for the physical and mental health of the ‎victims.‎

According to the announcement the revolutionary court made its decisions after a trial ‎that lasted less than 10 minutes. The Kurds had been held in prison in Sanandaj, ‎Kermanshah and Evin where they had been interrogated and violently mistreated. Farzad ‎Kamangar had been recently active in civil issues and worked with human rights NGOs ‎including the Kurdish organization for the defense of human rights. He is reported to ‎have been very harshly tortured in the security detention centers where he had been ‎subjected to electric shock and other physical abuse as his body indicated, something that ‎had been confirmed by witnesses. ‎

Kamangar had been held in solitary confinement for over 8 months while being ‎completely deprived of any visitations rights. He had also spent time in another notorious ‎prison known in Rajai Shahr. He is reported to have been particularly victimized in an ‎effort to force him to make fake self incriminating confessions, while he refuted the ‎allegations to his attorney.‎

While condemning any form of torture, the statement stressed that these acts were ‎completely contrary to law and human standards. In the statement, the signatories also ‎declared that they considered the sentences against the three Kurds to be completely ‎unfair and ask the Iranian judiciary to annul these sentences and initiate independent ‎investigations over the tortures committed on Farzad Kamangir.‎