BAGHDAD, Iraq – A Kurdish political prisoner in Iran has been executed, according to a rights group, despite international human rights experts having called for a halt to the process.
Heidar Ghorbani, 48, was accused of being involved in the killing of three men affiliated with Iran’s Basij paramilitary forces. Arrested in October 2016, he was initially forcibly disappeared for three months, reportedly tortured and held in solitary confinement.
The accused was convicted of “armed rebellion against the state” and sentenced to death in January 2020 by a court in Iran’s Kurdistan province, despite the court admitting that Ghobani was never armed, according to the statement.
Hengaw Organization for Human Rights in a statement on Sunday said they have received information that the execution was carried out on the morning of December 4 in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj.
In September, United Nations human rights experts called on Iran to halt Ghorbani’s execution and repeal his death sentence.
Iran is one of the biggest death penalty enforcers in the world, with its number of death sentences branded “troubling” by UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran Javaid Rehman in a March statement.
Tens of thousands of political prisoners are jailed in Iran over various charges including advocating for democracy and promoting the rights of women, workers, and ethnic minorities.
Ethnic minority groups including Kurds and Azeris are disproportionately detained and more harshly sentenced for acts of political dissidence, according to a July 2019 report from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran.
According to data collected by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), more than 230 people were executed in 2020. The report added that more than 72% of executions were done in secret and not reported by the government.
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