Iranian Kurdish prisoner Heidar Ghorbani, 47, is at risk of execution
Dear Friends,
Please find attached and copied below an Urgent Action that Amnesty International issued yesterday on Iranian Kurdish prisoner, Heidar Ghorbani, 47, who is at risk of execution for "armed rebellion against the state" (baghi), despite serious fair trial violations and the trial court confirming that he was never armed. His conviction is based on torture-tainted "confessions", obtained while he was forcibly disappeared. The authorities must quash his sentence and grant him a fair retrial.
The Urgent Action is available on the Amnesty International website at the following link:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/3101/2020/en/
Please also find attached graphics in English and Persian, which can be used on social media.
Many thanks and best wishes,
Iran team
TORTURED KURDISH MAN AT RISK OF EXECUTION
Iranian Kurdish prisoner Heidar Ghorbani, 47, is at risk of execution for "armed rebellion against the state" (baghi), despite serious fair trial violations and the trial court confirming that he was never armed. His conviction is based on torture- tainted "confessions", obtained while he was forcibly disappeared. The authorities must quash his sentence and grant him a fair retrial.
TAKE ACTION: WRITE AN APPEAL IN YOUR OWN WORDS OR USE THIS MODEL LETTER
Head of Judiciary Ebrahim Raisi
c/o Permanent Mission
of Iran to the UN Chemin du Petit-Saconnex 28, 1209 Geneva, Switzerland
Dear Mr Ebrahim Raisi,
Heidar
Ghorbani, a member of Iran's Kurdish
minority held on death row in Sanandaj prison in Kurdistan province, is at risk of execution. Branch 27 of Iran's
Supreme Court upheld
his death sentence on 6 August
2020, without addressing the numerous due process
violations and evidential issues raised by his
lawyers. On 5 September 2020, the Supreme Court rejected his request for
judicial review.
On 21 January 2020, a Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj convicted Heidar
Ghorbani of "armed rebellion against the state" and sentenced him to death
in connection with the killing
of three men
reportedly affiliated with
the Basij paramilitary forces in September and October 2016 by individuals
affiliated with the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, an armed Kurdish
opposition group. In its verdict, the court acknowledged that Heidar Ghorbani
was never armed.
Instead, it relied
on his torture-tainted statements "confessing" to having provided support to the
perpetrators of the killings, including by driving them to and from the
locations of the killings.
Amnesty International recalls
that the verdict
issued violates both Iran's obligations under international law, which limits the use of the death penalty
to the "most serious crimes"
involving intentional killing, as well as Iran's
own laws which stipulate that in order
to establish the crime of "armed rebellion against the state", the
defendant must be a member of an armed group and personally resort to arms.
Heidar Ghorbani's trial was
grossly unfair. Following his arrest on 11 October 2016, the authorities put him in solitary confinement for several
months and subjected him to enforced disappearance. He has said that during this
period, he was repeatedly tortured to give a video-recorded "confession" that was broadcast by the state-run Press TV prior to his trial in March 2017, in violation of the presumption of innocence. He said his
interrogators kicked and punched him, deprived him of sleep,
and forced him to lay on the ground
while they walked over his chest causing him a feeling
of suffocation. He was denied
access to a lawyer during
the investigation stage, and his lawyers were denied full access to his
court file at the trial stage.
I urge you to quash the
conviction and death sentence of Heidar Ghorbani and order a fair retrial
without recourse to the death penalty. Please ensure that his enforced
disappearance and torture allegations are investigated with a view to ensuring
that those suspected of responsibility are brought to justice in fair
trials, and take
measures to ensure "confessions" obtained under torture and other ill-treatment
or without the presence of a lawyer are not used as evidence in court.
Yours sincerely,
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
There has been an alarming escalation in use of the death penalty against
protesters, dissidents and
members of minority groups
in Iran in recent months.
Amnesty International is concerned that
death row prisoners from Iran's
disadvantaged ethnic minorities are particularly at risk, given
the authorities' pattern
of executing prisoners from these groups when concerned about the eruption
of popular protests.
Article 287 of Iran's Islamic
Penal Code states:
"Any group that takes up arms against
the foundations of the Islamic Republic of Iran is considered baghi and in the event of resorting
to the use of arms, its members
shall be sentenced to death." According to information recorded in Heidar Ghorbani's casefile and obtained by Amnesty International, even the
investigator of the
case, who works
in the office
of the prosecutor in Kurdistan province, stated in writing
on 1 February 2017 that there
is no evidence to charge
Heidar Ghorbani with
"armed rebellion against
the state" (baghi). However,
the prosecutor insisted that the indictment lists this charge
apparently under the influence of security and intelligence bodies.
On 12 September 2020, Heidar
Ghorbani's lawyers appealed
to the head
of Iran's judiciary to exercise the
powers granted to him
under Article 477 of Iran's
Code of Criminal
Procedure and order
a review of the case
on the basis
that the verdict issued is evidently in contravention with both Iranian
and Shari'a law.
Heidar Ghorbani was arrested on 12 October
2016, by about
10 ministry of intelligence officials who raided his
home and failed to show an arrest warrant.
For nearly three months, his family were denied any information about his fate and
whereabouts and did
not even know
if he was dead or alive. On 5 January
2017, he was allowed to briefly call
his family, but his whereabouts continued to be concealed. After this phone
call, his family
was again kept in the dark about
his fate and whereabouts until April 2017
when he was transferred to the central
prison in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province. Following his transfer to Sanandaj
prison, Heidar Ghorbani
revealed that while
forcibly disappeared, he had been
held for several days in a detention
centre in Kamyaran,
Kurdistan province, run by the Investigation Unit of Iran's police (Agahi), and then transferred to a ministry of intelligence detention centre in Sanandaj, where he was
held in solitary
confinement for several months.
On 8 March 2017, Press
TV, an Iranian
state-owned outlet that broadcasts in English, aired
a propaganda video entitled
"The Driver of Death", which
featured the forced
"confessions" of Heidar
Ghorbani without his knowledge.
In addition to violating the right to presumption of innocence and to remain
silent during interrogations and trial, the mental anguish caused to detainees and their families
by such "confession" videos, which generally dehumanize and
demonize the victims and purport
to show their
"guilt" for serious
crimes, violates the absolute prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under international law.
In addition to his trial
before the Revolutionary Court, Heidar Ghorbani was also tried
before Branch 1 of Criminal
Court 1 of Kurdistan province for aiding
and abetting murder,
attempted kidnapping, assisting the direct perpetrators to escape. In this trial, he was sentenced to a total of 118 years and six months
and 200 lashes
on 6 October 2019.
In view of the irreversible nature
of the death penalty, the proceedings in capital cases
must scrupulously observe
all relevant international standards protecting the right
to a fair trial, no matter how heinous the crime. All individuals who risk facing the death penalty must
benefit from the services of competent defence counsel at every stage of the
proceedings. They must be presumed innocent until their guilt has been proved
based upon clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts, in strict application of the highest
standards for gathering and assessing evidence. In addition, all mitigating factors
must be taken
into account. The proceedings must guarantee the right to review of both the factual and the legal
aspects of the case by a higher
tribunal. Imposition of the
death penalty following criminal proceedings that fall seriously short of fair
trial standards constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of the right
to life and may even amount to an extrajudicial execution.
Amnesty International opposes the death
penalty in all cases without
exception regardless of the nature
of the crime,
the characteristics of the offender, or the method
used by the state to kill the prisoner. The death penalty
is a violation of the right to life and the ultimate
cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Amnesty International has consistently called on all countries that retain the death penalty
including Iran to establish an official moratorium on executions, with a
view to completely abolishing the death penalty.
PREFERRED
LANGUAGE TO ADDRESS TARGET: Persian or English
You can also write in your own language.
PLEASE
TAKE ACTION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE UNTIL: 17 November 2020
Please check with the Amnesty office in your
country if you wish to send appeals after the deadline.
NAME
AND PRONOUN: Heidar Ghorbani (he/him)
**************************************
Voice of Kurdish-American Radio for Democracy, Peace, and Freedom
|