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LONDON: Two Iranian ethnic minority Kurds who allege they were tortured into making “confessions” are at imminent risk of execution, Amnesty International said Friday.
The human rights organization called on the Iranian authorities to immediately halt the planned executions of cousins Zaniar Moradi and Loghman Moradi who could be executed as early as Saturday.
The two men were held for nine months without access to their lawyers and families.
They say they “confessed” to murder after being tortured, including by being punched, kicked, and tied to a bed and flogged, as well as being threatened with rape. Their request for a judicial review of their case has been repeatedly ignored by the Iranian authorities.
“This is textbook Iranian ‘justice’. Two men are facing imminent execution after being sentenced to death on the basis of ‘confessions’ tainted by torture allegations. Despite the seriousness of the charges against them, their grossly unfair trial lasted just 20 minutes,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“We urge the Iranian authorities to immediately halt any plans to execute these men, to quash their convictions and sentences, and to order a new trial in proceedings that are in line with international fair trial standards. They must also investigate their torture claims and bring anyone found responsible to justice.”
The detainees have spent the last eight years on death row after being sentenced to death by public hanging in December 2010. They were moved from the general ward of Raja’i Shahr prison in the city of Karaj, north-west of Tehran, to solitary confinement cells in the same prison on 5 September 2018.
The prison authorities telephoned the two men’s families the next day and told them to go to the prison to visit their detained relatives, sparking fears that their executions were imminent.
Zaniar Moradi and Loghman Moradi have both repeatedly pleaded their innocence and denied the accusations against them.
They said that the Ministry of Intelligence targeted them in retaliation for the activities of Zaniar Moradi’s father, Eghbal Moradi, a well-known political dissident who was assassinated in July 2018.
Eghbal Moradi was a former member of the Komala Party of Kurdistan, a banned Iranian Kurdish opposition group based in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and a member of the Kurdistan Human Rights Association.
Zaniar Moradi and Loghman Moradi were arrested by Ministry of Intelligence officials on 1 August 2009 and 17 October 2009 respectively in the city of Marivan, Kurdistan province, and accused of the murder of the son of a senior cleric that had taken place in Marivan on 4 July 2009.
They said they were forced to “confess” to the murder in front of a video camera after being tortured. Their forced “confessions” were then broadcast on a programme that was aired on the state television channel Press TV in early November 2010, before their trial had even taken place.
In December 2010, after a trial that lasted just 20 minutes, Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran convicted them of “enmity against God” and murder. Their lawyer has told Amnesty International that the only evidence against them was their forced “confessions”.