According to human rights activists, at least seven Kurds have been executed in Iran. In the early hours of the morning, seven prisoners were executed in the central prison in the northwestern city of Urmia, according to the Oslo-based human rights organization Hengaw, which has good contacts in the region. There was initially no confirmation from the Iranian judiciary.
According to the report, a political prisoner was among those executed. Mohijeddin Ebrahimi was sentenced to death in 2018 for his membership in the Kurdish Democratic Party (PDKI) for high treason. The Islamic Republic regards the party as a terrorist organization and takes vehement action against its members. The human rights organization Amnesty International condemned the execution. According to Hengaw, the majority of those executed had been convicted of drug-related offences.
According to Amnesty, around 100 people were executed in Iran in January and February. The organization accuses the authorities in Iran of also using the death penalty as an “instrument of oppression” of ethnic minorities. Human rights activists have been criticizing the use of the death penalty in Iran for years, which is usually carried out by hanging and is used primarily for drug-related offences.
