The execution of a Kurdish prisoner and the imminent threat of execution of two other prisoners

The death sentence of Anwar Khezri, a political prisoner of the Kurdish Sunni religion, who was accused of being a member of Salafist groups, was executed on Wednesday after 15 years of imprisonment. Khosrow Basharat and Kamran Sheikhe are in imminent danger of execution. Anwar is the fifth person to be executed in a seven-person case. The Iranian Human Rights Organization warns that two others, Khosrow Basharat and Kamran Sheikhe, are in imminent danger of execution. In order to save these two and other defendants who are on the death row, this organization asks the people and the international community to react to the wave of executions in the Islamic Republic. According to the information of Iran Human Rights Organization, on the morning of Wednesday, May 12th, Anwar Khezri, a Sunni Kurdish political prisoner, was executed after 15 years of imprisonment in Qazal Hesar prison in Karaj. Anwar Khezri was arrested in a joint case together with Farhad Salimi, Dawood Abdullahi, Ayoub Karimi, Khosrow Basharat, Kamran Sheikha and Qasim Abasteh in February 2009 and were sentenced to death based on their confessions under torture and without a fair trial. Earlier, four of the defendants in this case named Qasim Abasteh, Ayoub Karimi, Dawood Abdullahi and Farhad Salimi were executed in the past months. According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, Anwar Khazari was transferred to solitary confinement on Tuesday, April 30, to execute the death sentence, and was executed on Wednesday morning without the family’s knowledge and the right to have a last visit in Qezel-Hesar prison in Karaj. Hours after the execution of Anwar Khezri, a Kurdish prisoner of conscience in Qazal-Hesar prison in Karaj, one of his co-accused named Khosro Basharat was transferred to solitary confinement to execute the death sentence. Khosrow Basharat was arrested in February 2009 by security forces in Mahabad city and transferred to Urmia Intelligence Department detention center.

In the grievance letter he published in 2019, he reported about his one-month detention and torture in the detention center of the Urmia Intelligence Department: “It was in February 2009 that I was arrested by the intelligence of Mahabad city and they immediately transferred me to the Urmia Intelligence Detention Center. For a whole month, they subjected me to various tortures. They tied my hands with handcuffs for a long time. They hung me from the ceiling with handcuffs many times They tied me to a bed and hit the soles of my feet with high-tension electric cables, so that my brain almost came out of my mouth, and my eyes were about to burst. These tortures continued for three weeks and after that They threatened me with the arrest of my family members, and at that time, under these tortures and threats, the interrogator wrote the accusations dictated to me by himself and forcibly took my signature and fingerprints on the same sheet, while at that time it was as if I was in this world. I wasn’t there and I didn’t know what I was signing.” After the beginning of the uprising of women, life, freedom, the number of executions in Iran has increased in an unprecedented way. In 2021, 333 people were executed in Iran, in 2022 and at the same time as the uprising of women, life, freedom, 582 people were executed in Iran, and in 2023, according to the report of the Iranian Human Rights Organization, this number reached 834 people. Since the beginning of 2024, 171 people have been executed in Iran.