During the past 9 days at least 43 prisoners, including 2 women and a juvenile offender, have been hanged in Iran.
The surge in executions follows 2 developments with high potential for prompting public expressions of anger against the regime: firstly, the failure of Iran nuclear talks in reaching a comprehensive deal and secondly an increase of over 30 % in the price of bread, the main nourishment for the vast majority of Iranian people.
The majority of the 43 executions carried out between November 24 and December 2 have been carried out in secret without public acknowledgement from the authorities.
On December 2, 11 prisoners were executed in Ghezel Hesar Prison in the city of Karaj. One of those executed was a woman and her husband as well as a citizen of Afghanistan. This was the 5th series of mass executions in recent weeks is this prison.
A large group of prisoners in Section 2 of the prison began a hunger strike on December 1 to protest against mass executions and to stop the execution of their cellmates. The prison chief threatened them, claiming that if they continue their protest, he will execute 200 people.
On the same day, December 2, 4 prisoners including one woman, in the central prison in the city of Orunieh and 3 other detainees in Bandar Abbas prison, were executed.
On November 28 two prisoners were executed in the cities of Ardabil and Qom.
On November 27, 3 prisoners were publicly executed in the cities of Mashhad and Jaghtay. The prisoner executed in Jaghtay - in Khorasan province - was a 20-year-old young man who was executed despite receiving clemency from the family of the murdered victim.
On Wednesday November 26, 5 prisoners were executed together in Karaj Gohardasht prison, 2 prisoners including a 23 year old in Qazvin prison and another prisoner in Sari prison.
On November 25, a group of 10 prisoners were hanged in Karaj Ghezel Hesar prison.
On the same day, henchmen hanged Rahim Nourallah-Zadeh, a young prisoner who was only 14 years old at the time of his arrest, in Tabriz prison. At least 4 other juvenile offenders have been executed in recent months in this prison. Fardin Jafarian, Ahad Akbari, Behnam Hakim Khani and Mohsen Moghadam were all less than 18 years old at the time of arrest.
On November 24, a prisoner was executed in the central prison in the city of Kashan.
Furthermore, in the 3rd week of November, in the city of Cheram in the province of Kohgilouye and Boyerahmad, state security forces flogged 4 people.
Silence and inaction by the international community against inhuman punishment and arbitrary mass executions in Iran has emboldened the ruling clerical dictatorship to continue with violations of human rights.
This regime must be rejected from the community of nations for its crimes against humanity and the dossier of its crimes must be referred to the United Nations Security Council and its leaders must be brought to justice.
Source: NCRI, December 4, 2014
