Security
Iran: More hangings imminent
Tehran, 24 July (AKI) - Tehran's chief prosecutor Saiid Mortazavi has announced that the execution by hanging of 17 "socially dangerous" people "is imminent". His announcement comes after Sunday's mass hangings (as shown in this rare cellphone image shortly before their deaths) of 12 people.
The authorities have also published the names of those executed and informed the families of the 17 others on death row.
Among those who were hanged at the weekend were Fazel Ramezani and Hajat Morad Mohammadi, who had been in jail for eight years. They had been arrested after a clash between a division of the Pasdaran (headline Revolutionary Guard) and young members of the Bakhtiari clan, which lives in the south east of the country.
The former queen Soraya and the former pre-1979 prime minister Shapour Bakhtiari are both members of the Bakhtiari clan, one of the most important nomad clans in Iran and one which has never had good relations with the theocratic regime.
Fazel Ramezani and Hajat Moradi Mohammadi were jailed for political reasons and have never been tried by a court.
Emadeddin Baghi, president of the Prisoners Defence Association, said two of the others who were hanged were not "socially dangerous" in that one was in jail for what he had written in his personal blog and the other arrested because he was in possession of videos of Iranian singers from Los Angeles.
It is not known whether among those hangedwere five people arrested on charges of having homosexual relations.
On the grim list of those due to be punished with the death penalty in the coming days, or maybe hours, is Meysam Lotfi, a student who was jailed for one year during the student revolt in 1999 .
His mother, in an interview with the feminist website Shahrzad News, said her son was arrested at dinnertime at the family home after in the afternoon he had tried to defend some younbg women who had been mistreated by the police because of their clothing.
The mother of Meysam and other young people accused of being "thugs" or a "danger to society" have formed a committee and appealed in a letter to Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader and to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demanding an explanation on the arrest son their children.
"Even if our children were guilty of some crime, they have the right to a free trial and a defence lawyer, while these sentences are summary justice and contrary to the current legislation of the Islamic Republic" read the letter.
"However grave the crimes might be, they are never as grave as the crimes commtted by the judges who have issued these sentences, trampling on the rights guarantted under our constitution and our law to any defendant, whatever his crime."
The authorities have also published the names of those executed and informed the families of the 17 others on death row.
Among those who were hanged at the weekend were Fazel Ramezani and Hajat Morad Mohammadi, who had been in jail for eight years. They had been arrested after a clash between a division of the Pasdaran (headline Revolutionary Guard) and young members of the Bakhtiari clan, which lives in the south east of the country.
The former queen Soraya and the former pre-1979 prime minister Shapour Bakhtiari are both members of the Bakhtiari clan, one of the most important nomad clans in Iran and one which has never had good relations with the theocratic regime.
Fazel Ramezani and Hajat Moradi Mohammadi were jailed for political reasons and have never been tried by a court.
Emadeddin Baghi, president of the Prisoners Defence Association, said two of the others who were hanged were not "socially dangerous" in that one was in jail for what he had written in his personal blog and the other arrested because he was in possession of videos of Iranian singers from Los Angeles.
It is not known whether among those hangedwere five people arrested on charges of having homosexual relations.
On the grim list of those due to be punished with the death penalty in the coming days, or maybe hours, is Meysam Lotfi, a student who was jailed for one year during the student revolt in 1999 .
His mother, in an interview with the feminist website Shahrzad News, said her son was arrested at dinnertime at the family home after in the afternoon he had tried to defend some younbg women who had been mistreated by the police because of their clothing.
The mother of Meysam and other young people accused of being "thugs" or a "danger to society" have formed a committee and appealed in a letter to Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader and to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demanding an explanation on the arrest son their children.
"Even if our children were guilty of some crime, they have the right to a free trial and a defence lawyer, while these sentences are summary justice and contrary to the current legislation of the Islamic Republic" read the letter.
"However grave the crimes might be, they are never as grave as the crimes commtted by the judges who have issued these sentences, trampling on the rights guarantted under our constitution and our law to any defendant, whatever his crime."
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