(New York, June 26, 2006) – Iran’s judiciary should rescind the death sentences of at least 10 Iranians of Arab origin convicted of plotting against the state, and retry them before courts that meet international fair trial standards, Human Rights Watch said today. At least 10 Iranians of Arab origin have been condemned to death following secret trials in the southwestern province of Khuzistan, which has seen ethnic unrest among its Iranian-Arab population in the past year.

We always oppose the death penalty, because it is cruel and flawed. But sentencing people to death after such an inadequate trial is especially outrageous.

All the men were charged with armed activity against the state and were tried before Revolutionary Courts. Human Rights Watch spoke with one of the two defense lawyers for the men sentenced most recently, who confirmed that all trials were held behind closed doors and without any independent and impartial observers present.

“These men are accused of serious crimes, but they clearly haven’t had a fair trial,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “We always oppose the death penalty, because it is cruel and flawed. But sentencing people to death after such an inadequate trial is especially outrageous.”

The lawyers did not have an opportunity to meet with their clients to discuss their case with them, but had to prepare a defense based on the prosecution file presented to them. The trials have all been closed to the public, and defense lawyers remain the sole source of non-official information as to what occurred.

On March 2, the authorities hanged Ali Afrawi and Mehdi Nawaseri in Ahwaz, the capital of Khuzistan province. The authorities accused them of carrying out two bombings in Ahwaz that killed six people on October 15, 2005.

On June 6, Judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimirad said that a Revolutionary Court had sentenced six men to death, after it found them guilty of bombing oil pipelines in July 2005. He did not provide any information about the condemned men, or about when or where their trial was held.

Defense lawyers told Human Rights Watch that on June 8, the Third Branch of the Revolutionary Court in Ahwaz sentenced another four men to death following a one-day trial on June 7. The court found the men, Zamel Bawi, Jaafar Sawari, Raisan Sawari, and Abdulreza Nawaseri, guilty of armed activity against the state.

Human Rights Watch said that the Iranian government is obliged as a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to provide persons accused of crimes with “fair and public hearing by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal.”

“A summary trial behind closed doors does not meet the international standards binding Iran,” said Whitson. “For Iran to put these defendants to death would be the ultimate violation of their rights.”

Zamel Bawi’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, told Human Rights Watch that during his client’s trial on June 7, the Revolutionary Court prosecutor charged the four men under Iran’s penal code as mohareb, meaning “enemies of God.” The accusation of being mohareb is leveled against anyone charged with taking up arms against the state and committing violent acts, and is punishable by death.

According to Nikbakht, the state presented evidence that the defendants had purchased homemade bombs which they deactivated and hid, a charge that carries a 10-year prison sentence. But the lawyer said that since the prosecutor presented no evidence that the men had actually carried out any violent acts, they had not committed a capital offense under Iranian law.

Human Rights Watch called on the Iranian government to stop using the death penalty, due to its inherent cruelty and irrevocability.

Background

During the past year, Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzistan has witnessed ethnic unrest among its Iranian-Arab population. The province is home to nearly two million Iranians of Arab descent. Protests erupted in Khuzistan’s capital, Ahwaz, on April 15, 2005, following publication of a letter allegedly written by Mohammad Ali Abtahi, an advisor to President Mohammad Khatami, which referred to government plans to implement policies that would reduce the proportion of ethnic Arabs in Khuzistan’s population. After security forces tried to disperse the demonstrators and opened fire on them, clashes between protestors and security forces turned violent. The violence spread to other cities and towns in Khuzistan. The next day, Abtahi and other government officials denied the existence of the letter and called it fake.

Ahwaz and other cities experienced several bombings after the April 2005 protests. In June 2005, four bombs in Ahwaz and two others in Tehran killed 10 people and injured at least 90. Two other bombings in Ahwaz, one in October 2005 and another in January 2005, killed 12 people. The government has reportedly arrested hundreds of Iranian Arabs since April 15, 2005.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/06/26/iran13609.htm

Salaam,


Interesting article...

I guess now since the western powers want to go tow ar with Iran,it now has to divide the Ummah again.

Sunni and Shia then and now Arab and Iranian(what is the iranian race by the way)..LOL

Will the muslim leaders of egypt,suadi arabia and tohr whom are in bed with the US support and propogate such news..

You bet..

The US is doind exactly th same thing in th name of US safety,is Iran no allowed to?
For Sep 11,the US have murdered 180 000 human beings..

As form this article,from 6 bombing commited by "arab iranians" it casues 22 death and 90 injured.

^^iranians are also known as persians

what is the iranian race by the way

Persians.

The US is doind exactly th same thing in th name of US safety,is Iran no allowed to?

Or maybe Iran is breaking law by imprising Arabs and showing rascist attidtude.

^^ The same source you listed considers Israel as an occupied state, controlling Palestine.

Originally Posted by QuranStudy

^^ The same source you listed considers Israel as an occupied state, controlling Palestine.

Anymore off topic comments about the source?

Do you agree with the source on Islamic womens rights issues?
Do you agree with the source on Iran?
Do you agree with what the source says on Sudan?

The Iranians (Persians) are a totaly different set of people from the Semetic people. They are more identified as being European White. There is a long history of prejudice between Iranians and Arabs, in both directions.

Technicaly the Iranians form the Indo-Aryan Race. Although Islam does forbid racism, it has long been an issue among Arabs and Iranians.

One good that seems to be coming out of this is it seems that now both Iranians and Arabs are begining to see each other as Muslims and not as Aryans and Arabs.

In the recent past:

Bicycle of fear: The Arab-Persian paradigm
The allergic reaction of most Iranians to the term "Arabian Gulf" is best understood in terms of the larger pathology that grips the Iranian psyche -- the loss of identity. In that context, the struggle over the maintenance of the name of "Persian Gulf" looms as the last stand of all things Persian or Iranian. In the aftermath of the Islamic revolution, the fear of loss of identity has grown even greater because the Iranian nationalist views the government's Islamic proclivity as an extension of the conquest and acculturation of Persia by the Arabs beginning in the seventh century.

It is peculiar that the Iranian nationalist does not have the same antipathy, however, toward the Greeks and Mongols who conquered Persia. Three factors explain this difference. First, neither the Greek nor the Mongol invasion transformed the Iranian culture and so presently one sees virtually no discernable residue or reminder of their passage through Persia. Second, the Greek and Mongol conquests had a beginning and an end. Third, the geographical distance clearly separated the Persian from the centers of Greek and Mongol worlds. By contrast, the adjacency of the Persian and Arab has kept alive the seething mutual antipathy between the two along complex cultural, religious, ethnic, territorial, and linguistic divides.

The pathology of fear which grips the Iranian Arab-phobe and the Arab Irano-phobe is the flip side of the same coin. The Iranian views the Arab as the one intent on finishing the job that it began in the seventh century, continually eroding and erasing the vestiges of the Iranian world. In this struggle against the Arab hegemony, the Iranian nationalist defends the name of the "Persian Gulf" and the inseparability of the Tonbs and Abu Musa Islands from Iran, and disdains the creeping of the Palestinian causes into Iranian domestic and international agenda.

Source: http://www.iranian.com/GuiveMirfende...mber/Paranoia/

Perhaps the introduction of a common enemy will bring about unity.

Anymore off topic comments about the source?

Do you agree with the source on Islamic womens rights issues?
Do you agree with the source on Iran?
Do you agree with what the source says on Sudan?

Yes to all, I also agree what it says on Israel.

The Iranians (Persians) are a totaly different set of people from the Semetic people. They are more identified as being European White.

There more identified as European white!?!?! This I did not know.

I guess now since the western powers want to go tow ar with Iran,it now has to divide the Ummah again.

The people who divide your Ummah are the ones who car bomb Shia neghborhoods, and arrest Arabs in Persia (Iran) because of their ethnicity.

Originally Posted by therebbe

There more identified as European white!?!?! This I did not know.

The name Iran comes from the (now infamous) word 'Aryan'. The Aryans were a race from Persia who settled in India and Europe, which is why Indian and European languages are from the same family. Hitler abused the word 'Aryan', and turned it from a historical word to a peice of propaganda.

Originally Posted by Fishman

The name Iran comes from the (now infamous) word 'Aryan'. The Aryans were a race from Persia who settled in India and Europe, which is why Indian and European languages are from the same family. Hitler abused the word 'Aryan', and turned it from a historical word to a peice of propaganda.

Hmmmm... Interesting. Isn't an "Aryan" a blonde hair blue eyes who isn;t jewish (defined by nazis) if so did the original meaning not have any correlation with its current meaning?

Originally Posted by Vishnu

Hmmmm... Interesting. Isn't an "Aryan" a blonde hair blue eyes who isn;t jewish (defined by nazis) if so did the original meaning not have any correlation with its current meaning?

The blue eyes blond hair thing was because part of Nazi mythology involves Aryans originally being Nordic supermen either from the North Pole, a land inside the Earth, or Atlantis. Nordic people often have blue eyes and blonde hair, so if you see a white person with blue eyes then they are probably descended from the Normans, who were originally from Denmark and Norway before they entered France.

Originally Posted by therebbe

There more identified as European white!?!?! This I did not know.

From what i know Persian are more close to Azerbaijan,Georgia,Armenia also categorized as subgroup branch from Indo-Europeans family.They are totally different from Arab and others Semitic family,in fact Arab and Persian have a long history in fighting.

Originally Posted by starfortress

From what i know Persian are more close to Azerbaijan,Georgia,Armenia also categorized as subgroup branch from Indo-Europeans family.They are totally different from Arab and others Semitic family,in fact Arab and Persian have a long history in fighting.

Really? Can your provide an example of Persian - Arab fighting? I have not heard of many accounts of this other than possibly modern day Iraq and Iran.