Fears were greatly fuelled about the fate of several prisoners sentenced to death after they were transferred to an unknown destination, while the memory of the platform attack in Ahwaz approaches (22^nd of September, 2018).

Human rights sources revealed that three prisoners who were sentenced to death, Ali Motairi, Hussein Silawi, and Ali Khasraji, were transferred to an unknown destination, along with another prisoner named Ali Mojdami from Shiban prison in Ahwaz.

According to information obtained by the Ahwazi Organization for the Defence of Human Rights, Ali Motairi – a resident of the town of Shiban, north of Ahwaz – is accused of assassinating two Basij members in Shiban by stabbing on May 6, 2016.

The Revolutionary Court issued a death sentence against the Ahwazi prisoner, Ali Motairi, in a mock trial on charges of “fighting God”, threatening national security, and belonging to an Ahwazi political organization. The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence issued against him.

As for the two prisoners, Ali Khasraji – a 26-year-old from the Alawi neighborhood in Ahwaz – and Hussein Silawi, a 30-year-old resident of Khobina in Ahwaz – were arrested on May 2017 on charges of participating in armed operations against security centres in Ahwaz.

In the absurd scene, the security and judicial authorities accused the three prisoners, Ali Motairi, Hussain Silawi, and Ali Khasraji, of participating in the attack on the Hamid police station – located 40 kilometers from Ahwaz, and the 23 Mujahideen police station in Ahwaz, which took place on May 2017.

The death sentence was issued against the three by the Revolutionary Court and upheld by the Court of Appeal, while the death sentence issued against them was approved by the Supreme Court in an illegal trial, where the three defendants were denied access to lawyers during the trial.

Regarding the fourth prisoner, Ali Mojdami, 39, a resident of Kut Sayed Saleh, Ahwaz, Iranian intelligence arrested him on February 11, 2017, along with 14 Arab citizens, including two women, on charges of carrying out armed operations against the security forces.

He was tried before the Revolutionary Court on charges of undermining the security of the country, communicating with foreign parties, and forming a group opposing the Iranian regime, and there is insufficient information about the procedures in which the trial took place or the details of the ruling in this case.

For its part, the Ahwazi Organization for the Defence of Human Rights expresses its concerns about the fate of the four Arab prisoners, especially with the approaching anniversary of the attack on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s convoy, what is known in the media as the platform incident that occurred on September 22, 2018, in Ahwaz.

The organization calls on the international community, the United Nations, organizations, and human rights bodies to take immediate action by pressing the Iranian regime to reveal the fate of the four prisoners and to disclose the places and conditions of their detention.

As well as working to oblige the Iranian regime to disclose all its secret prisons by forming international and legal committees to follow up the detainees’ affairs, in addition to forming fact-finding committees to find out what the regime is committing in terms of war crimes against Ahwazi prisoners.