Ahwaz Human Rights Organization
P.O. Box 679, Lorton, Virginia 22199
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Fax 703.266.0330 www.ahwazstudies.org
Urgent Action To: General Secretary of the United Nations, World Leaders, International Human Rights Organizations and NGOs, and to World Media:
Ten ethnic Arab-Iranian (Ahwazi-Arabs) rights activists are going to be hanged in Iran this week, possibly on Tuesday or Wednesday.
On November 9, Abbas Jaafari Dowlatabadi, head of Iran’s Judiciary in the southern province of Khuzistan, told the Islamic Republic News Agency that Iran’s Supreme Court has confirmed the execution sentence of 10 Iranian Arabs. We are making an emergency appeal to you to save their lives. Your action might help stop these executions. The names of the 10 men are: 1. Ali Motairi, 2. Abdullah Solaimani, 3. Abdulreza Sanawati (Zergani), 4. Ghasem Salamat, 5. Mohamad Chaab Pour, 6. Abdulamir Farajullah Chaab, 7. Alireza Asakreh, 8. Majed Alboghubaish, 9. Khalaf Khaziri, 10. Malek Banitamim These men have been found guilty of allegedly bombing oil installations at Southwestern Iranian province of Khuzesatn (al-Ahwaz), homeland to 5 million Ahwazi-Arabs. All 10 men are members of the persecuted Ahwazi community. The trials were deeply flawed, according to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other international and Iranian human rights organizations. All the evidence points to their innocence. All 10 men were tortured into making false confessions. Their lawyers were not allowed to see them prior to their trial and they were given the prosecution case only hours before the start of the trial, which was held in secret. The lawyers for the condemned men ( Khalil Saeedi, Mansur Atashneh,
Dr Abdulhasan Haidari, Jawad Tariri, Faisal Saeedi and Taheri Nasab), all Ahwazi-Arabs but one, have been arrested for complaining about the illegal and unjust nature of the men's trials. They have been charged with threatening national security. Iranian media announced that the confessions (forced) of the 10 men sentenced to death will be broadcasted on Khuzestan TV, on Monday evening, 13 November. Their executions will be held in public, probably on Tuesday or Wednesday. This follows the pattern when two other Ahwazis, Ali Afrawi-(age 17) and Mehdi Nawaseri (20 years old) were executed in March of this year for similar charges. Although Ahwazi-Arab homeland in Iran's Khuzestan province is one of the most oil-rich regions in the world and represents up to 90 per cent of Iran's oil production. Yet this community endures extreme levels of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy. Ahwazis are subjected to repression, racial discrimination and faced with land confiscation, forced displacement and forced assimilation. In addition to the 10 due to be killed next week, 9 other Ahwazis (including 3 brothers) are also due to be executed later, after they were sentenced to death on 8 June, 2006 following a one-day trial in absence of lawyers or witnesses. Two of these 9 men sentenced to death, Nazem Bureihi and Abdolreza Nawaseri, were already serving prison sentences for insurgency at the time of the bomb attacks for which the regime claims they were responsible for. “One of the wonders of the Iranian Judiciary is that it can accuse a person of carrying out bombings while he’s in prison,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “That lays bare the arbitrariness of his conviction.” The convictions are evidently arbitrary and are intended to collectively punish Ahwazi Arabs for opposing the system of apartheid that they are subjected to. Peaceful opposition among Ahwazi Arabs to the Iranian regime's racist policies of ethnic cleansing has been brutally suppressed. Since April 15, 2005 the beginning of the Ahwazi Intifada (Uprising), over 25,000 Ahwazis were arrested, at least 131 were killed and over 150 were disappeared (believed to have been tortured and killed by Iranian security forces). Iranian authorities level accusations against the USA, Great Britain and Israel as the cause of Ahwazi demands for democracy, social and economic justice. Ethnic cleansing against Iranian-Arabs in Khuzestan has intensified since the mid-1990s, particularly following the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad We urge for an immediate action to pressure the Iranian government to commute these sentences. Ahwazi Human Rights Organization
P.O. Box 679, Lorton, Virginia 22199
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Fax 703.266.0330 www.ahwazstudies.org
AHRO- UK
P. O. Box 17725, London, N5 2WP, U.K
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www.ahwazhumanrights.org
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