Sunni Kurdish Man Executed in Iran

The Islamic Republic's authorities have executed a Sunni Kurdish man 14 years after his arrest.

According to the Hengaw human rights organization, Farhad Salimi, from the western city of Saqqez, was executed on January 23 in Karaj’s Ghezelhesar prison, near Tehran.

He had been transferred to solitary confinement at the weekend.  

Salimi's family received a summons for a final visit on January 22. However, when they arrived at the prison, they were told to come back today. 

Instead of the anticipated last meeting with their loved one, the relatives received the distressing news of Salimi’s execution.

In the past two months, the authorities executed three men sentenced to death in the same case – Davoud Abdollahi, Ghasem Abesteh and Ayoub Karimi.

Three other convicts in the case – Anwar Khezri, Kamran Sheikheh and Khosrow Basharat – are said to be at grave risk of execution in Ghezelhesar prison amid a spike in executions in the country.

The seven men were arrested in December 2009 and January 2010 in West Azerbaijan province and accused of membership in “Salafist groups” – a charge they denied. 

They were convicted of “corruption on Earth” and sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court of Tehran in 2018.

In 2020, the Supreme Court upheld their convictions and death sentences, and rejected their request for retrial.

The presiding judge had barred the defendants’ lawyer from speaking at the trial. 

Khezri, Basharat and Salimi wrote in open letters that were extracted “confessions” through torture, including repeated beatings, suspension from the ceiling, mock executions and sleep deprivation.