Amnesty: Obama's BFF Iran’s ‘staggering’ execution spree - nearly 700 put to death in just over six months. (
NCRI).
The Iranian authorities are believed to have executed an astonishing
694 people between 1 January and 15 July 2015, said Amnesty
International today, in an unprecedented spike in executions in the
country.
"This is equivalent to executing more than three people per day. At
this shocking pace, Iran is set to surpass the total number of
executions in the country recorded by Amnesty International for the
whole of last year,"
the international human rights group said.
“
Iran’s staggering execution toll for the first half of this year
paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state carrying out
premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale,” said Said
Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and
North Africa Programme.
“If Iran’s authorities maintain this horrifying execution rate we are
likely to see more than 1,000 state-sanctioned deaths by the year’s
end.”
The announcement by Amnesty continued:
"The surge in executions
reveals just how out of step Iran is with the rest of the world when it
comes to the use of the death penalty - 140 countries worldwide have now
rejected its use in law or practice. Already this year three more
countries have repealed the death penalty completely."
"Executions in Iran did not even stop during the holy month of
Ramadan. In a departure from established practice, at least four people
were executed over the past month."
"While Amnesty International opposes the use of the death penalty
unconditionally and in all cases, death sentences in Iran are
particularly disturbing because they are invariably imposed by courts
that are completely lacking in independence and impartiality. They are
imposed either for vaguely worded or overly broad offences, or acts that
should not be criminalized at all, let alone attract the death penalty.
Trials in Iran are deeply flawed, detainees are often denied access to
lawyers in the investigative stage, and there are inadequate procedures
for appeal, pardon and commutation."
Said Boumedouha said: “The Iranian authorities should be ashamed of
executing hundreds of people with complete disregard for the basic
safeguards of due process,”.
“The use of the death penalty is always abhorrent, but it raises
additional concerns in a country like Iran where trials are blatantly
unfair.”
“For years, Iranian authorities have used the death penalty to spread
a climate of fear in a misguided effort to combat drug trafficking, yet
there is not a shred of evidence to show that this is an effective
method of tackling crime,” said Said Boumedouha.
Many of those
convicted of drug-related offences come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Their cases are rarely publicized. In a letter circulated online in
June, 54 prisoners held on death row in Ghezel Hesar prison near Tehran
described their plight:
“We are the victims of a state of hunger, poverty and misery, hurled
down into the hollows of perdition by force and without our will… If we
had jobs, if we did not need help, if we could turn our lives around and
stop our children from going hungry, why should we have gone down a
path that guaranteed us our death?”
Amnesty International continued:
"Among those executed in Iran are
also members of ethnic and religious minorities convicted of 'enmity
against God' and 'corruption on earth' including Kurdish political
prisoners and Sunni Muslims."
"Currently, based on monitoring work done by Amnesty International
and other human rights organizations, several thousand people are
believed to be on death row in Iran. The Iranian authorities have said
that 80% of those awaiting execution are convicted of drug-related
offences. They have not, however, provided an exact number."
“It is especially harrowing that there is no end in sight for this
theatre of cruelty with Iran’s gallows awaiting thousands more death row
prisoners,” said Said Boumedouha.
Prisoners in Iran are often left languishing on death row, wondering
each day if it will be their last, the human rights group said. "In many
cases they are notified of their execution only a few hours beforehand
and in some cases, families learn about the fate of their loved ones
days, if not weeks, later."
"Each year the Iranian authorities acknowledge a certain number of
judicial executions. However, many more judicial executions are carried
out but not acknowledged."
"As of 15 July 2015, the Iranian authorities had officially
acknowledged 246 executions this year but Amnesty International has
received credible reports of a further 448 executions carried out in
this time period. In 2014, 289 people were executed according to
official sources but credible reports suggested that the real figure was
at least 743."
Hmmmm....Just imagine what they will do to the ones they really hate, once they get hold of nuclear weapons.
'He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it'. -
Martin Luther King, Jr.
