Iran: Fears for prisoners on death row

AI Index: MDE 13/070/2010
30 June 2010 

Amnesty International has made a new call to the Iranian authorities to immediately halt all executions and commute all death sentences as concern grows about two women and other prisoners who may be at imminent risk of execution.

The organization is also urging the authorities to review and repeal death penalty laws, to disclose full details of all death sentences and executions, and to join the growing international trend towards abolition.

Two women are feared to be at imminent risk of execution. Zeynab Jalalian, a political activist and member of the Kurdish minority , was sentenced to death in early 2009 after being convicted of "enmity against God", while Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, whose conviction of "adultery while being married" was upheld in May 2007, could be executed by stoning at any time.

Excellency Ban Ki-Moon,

According to many, this gathering was first of its kind where people belonging to all nation groups in Iran were represented at the conference.

Persians, Azeri Turks, Kurds, Baluchis, Ahwazi Arabs and Turkmens attended the conference to hold a two day dialogue to draft a common agenda.  There were heated exchanges between oppressed nationalities who favour a decentralized state in Iran and the dominant Persians who fear that decentralization will lead to the break-up of the country.

The conference was held on the anniversary of last year’s tumultuous protests that led to widespread anti-regime demonstrations rarely seen in the last thirty years of regime’s reign.