EU: Pace of Executions in Iran is Appalling

Iranian security personnel preparing ropes for the gallows. (IRNA Agency)
Iranian security personnel preparing ropes for the gallows. (IRNA Agency)
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EU: Pace of Executions in Iran is Appalling

Iranian security personnel preparing ropes for the gallows. (IRNA Agency)
Iranian security personnel preparing ropes for the gallows. (IRNA Agency)

The European Union (EU) on Friday described the current pace of executions in Iran as “appalling”, reiterating its firm and principled opposition to the use of capital punishment at all times and in all circumstances.
“There are credible reports that a minor, Hamidreza Azari, and a protester, Milad Zohrevand, were executed in Iran on November 24 and 23 respectively,” the Arab World Press quoted the EU statement.
“The current pace of executions in Iran, at least 600 since January, is appalling,” added the statement.
“The European Union reiterates its firm and principled opposition to the use of capital punishment at all times and in all circumstances. The death penalty is a cruel and inhumane punishment, which fails to act as a deterrent to crime and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity.”
Iranian authorities executed a Kurdish man jailed for almost 14 years in a case linked to a Muslim cleric's killing in 2008, rights groups said, decrying unjust proceedings, according to Iran International.
Ayoub Karimi, 33, was arrested in 2019 on the capital charge of "corruption on earth" in a case involving six other Kurdish men who also received the death penalty.
Amnesty International had issued warnings in recent days, highlighting the imminent danger of Karimi's execution and urging authorities to cancel the sentence.
Karimi was hanged along with six other men, who had received sentences in unrelated cases, in Ghezel Hesar prison in the Tehran suburb of Karaj, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group said.
Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “The execution of Ayoub Karimi, based on coerced confessions and without a fair trial, like the execution of other political prisoners, is a crime.”
The execution was confirmed by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency and France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network.
Amnesty International said in a statement at the time that the trial was "grossly unfair," pointing to forced confessions under torture.
The remaining five defendants are still incarcerated and face the imminent threat of execution, according to human rights watchdogs.
The rate of executions in Iran has been rising sharply, particularly in the wake of widespread protests that swept across the country last year following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody for an alleged head-scarf violation.
This month it has executed Milad Zohrevand, a man in his 20s in a case related to the protests, as well as 17-year-old youth Hamidreza Azari on murder charges as well as dozens of others.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."