Kurdish Prisoners of Conscience in Danger of Execution

Iran Human Rights: Four Sunni Muslim prisoners belonging to the Kurdish ethnic minority in Iran are at imminent danger of execution.

According to the reliable sources there is increasing concern that these prisoners, who are being held at the Ghezel Hesar Prison (near Tehran), might be executed in the coming days.

Jamshid and Jahangir Dehgani (brothers), Hamed Ahmadi and Kamal Molayee were arrested in 2009. They were accused along with six others of involvement in the assassination of a senior Sunni cleric with ties to the Iranian authorities.

They have denied any involvement, saying that their arrest and detention preceded the assassination by several months. They were sentenced to death by the branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, convicted of "Moharebeh" (enmity against God) and "acts against the nation’s security". Their trial lasted about 10 minutes and they haven’t seen their lawyer, according to sources who have been in contact with Iran Human Rights (IHR).

The six other prisoners were executed in December 2012, but the death sentences of the four prisoners were postponed.

Their execution was scheduled to be carried out in on September 25 but it was postponed for one month possibly due to the international attention.

Now, more than one month later there is increasing concern that the four prisoners can be executed at any time.

IHR called for a reaction by the international community to save these prisoners. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR, said: These prisoners have been subjected to unfair trials and are possibly sentenced to death as part of the Iranian authorities’ crackdown of the Sunni Muslim minority in Iran. We ask the international community to use all the channels in order to stop the executions.