Executions unabated: One Ahwazi prisoner executed, six others on death row as crackdown on Ahwazis intensifies

 

Following the heinous execution of prisoner and activist Habib Chaab, a member of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, which represents a continuation of the policy of extrajudicial killing in the face of international silence, human rights concerns are growing about the lives of Ahwazi prisoners in Iranian prisons.

 

On Tuesday, February 14, 2023, the Iranian regime’s judiciary sentenced six Ahwazi detainees to death without a fair trial. The inmates sentenced to death are Ali Saleh Majdum, Mu’in Sadiq Khunfari, Mohammad Reza Majdum, Sayed Salem Khalf Musawi, Sayed Adnan Younis Musawi, and Habib Abdel Amir Daris, according to the Ahwazi Organization for the Defense of Human Rights.

 

According to the organization, the Iranian regime’s forces conduct random arrest campaigns on a regular basis in order to suppress dissidents and confiscate the opinions of everyone who disagrees with them. They also encircle Ahwazi communities and neighborhoods and set up ambushes in an attempt to crush any domestic protests against Iranian policies and crimes on Ahwazi land.

 

The organization affirms that the relatives of prisoners and those who have been executed have not been spared the Iranian regime’s criminal acts. Visits to inmates are always restricted, and any communication with them is cut off. This goes all the way to the most terrible actions against the families of those who have been executed, where they are forbidden from having consolation gatherings and anyone who thinks of breaching this is severely penalized and punished.

 

Thus, the Ahwazi Organization for the Defense of Human Rights expresses grave worry for the lives of Ahwazi detainees held in Iranian jails, urging the international community to put pressure on the Iranian regime to uphold international human rights treaties.

The organization also reiterates the Iranian regime’s declaration of war against Ahwazi detainees, in which it openly defies all international laws and conventions, reflects its failure to intimidate the Ahwazi people and repress their demand for their legal rights.

 

It adds that the declared war took numerous forms, beginning with denying inmates visits, medical neglect, physical abuse, and ending with executions, necessitating immediate international intervention from the international community.

 

In addition to being arrested on trumped-up accusations, Ahwazi prisoners’ tragedy doesn’t begin with execution. The tragedy and injustice happen as soon as an Ahwazi is arrested. First, the Ahwazis are deprived of the ability to hire defense lawyers. During the interrogations, the Ahwazis are tortured for concessions. All the confessions taken from the Ahwazi prisoners are coerced. According to observers, all the trials of Ahwazi activists are not held on legal grounds but political ones.

 

The Iranian courts are in no way regular courts. They are called ‘revolutionary courts’, which confers upon them a status that elevates them above the regular litigation measures. Therefore, Ahwazis never get the rights prisoners elsewhere in the world enjoy when standing trial. The trials, as observers suggest, are held on ethno-sectarian grounds. The Ahwazi prisoners are tried for nothing but their ethnic affiliation and identity as Arabs.

 

The Ahwazi Organization for the Defense of Human Rights