Iranian authorities executed a woman on Thursday morning, September 26, 2019, in Sanandaj Prison. She was identified as Leila Zarafshan and was in prison since five years ago on murder charges.

Leila Zarafshan is the 95th woman to be executed in Iran during Rouhani’s term in office since 2013. Iran is the only country that executes juveniles and holds the highest number of female executions in the world.

On August 25, 2019, a woman was executed in Mashhad Central Prison.

Another woman identified as Maliheh Salehian from Miandoab was hanged on July 16, 2019, in the Central Prison of Mahabad, in the western Iranian province of Kurdistan.

Zahra Safari Moghaddam, 43, was hanged in the Prison of Nowshahr, northern Iran, on July 17, 2019.
Arasteh Ranjbar and Nazdar Vatankhah, two in-laws who had already spent 15 years in prison, were hanged in the Central Prison of Urmia, northwestern Iran, on July 23, 2019.

Iran’s deliberate use of capital punishment has been a constant source of international outrage and condemnation. According to several independent international bodies, including the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran and Amnesty International, Iran is the leading state in executions per capita, second only to China in terms of figures. Iran also tops the charts in the number of executions of women and juvenile offenders.

The Iranian regime is also notoriously known for systematic and mass executions of opposition members and dissidents. Tens of thousands were executed in early 1980s.

Human rights experts from various countries took part in a conference on September 20, 2019, held at the Palais des Nations of the United Nations European Headquarters in Geneva, emphasizing on the need to end the three-decade-long impunity Iranian regime officials have been enjoying in relation to continuing human rights violations across the country, and especially the horrendous summer 1988 massacre.

In the summer of 1988, in a horrendous and genocidal act, over 30,000 political prisoners were summarily executed following a fatwa (edict) issued by Khomeini.

The majority of those victims were PMOI / MEK members and supporter. The event led to Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, then the heir apparent to the regime’s throne.

In an audio recording surfacing 28 years later, he describes the massacre as the largest crimes against humanity, and history will condemn the perpetrators.

Source » iran-hrm