FOUR KURDS FACING THE IRANIAN HANGMAN

6.10.2013 –  SANANDAJ – basnews + amnesty international : Iranian Kurdistan,— During his Friday sermon on Oct. 4, Mullah Husamadeen Mujtahidi, an imam in the Iranian Kurdish city of Sanandaj in Eastern Kurdistan (northwestern Iran), called on the authorities to hang four men who he holds responsible for killing Sheikh al-Islam Burhani A’ali, another imam from the city. Amnesty International, however, said the men were in prison when the killing took place.

A source in Iranian Kurdistan told Basnews that imam Mullah Mujtahidi said, “The courts have sentenced the perpetrators to be hanged. Delaying their punishment is an insult to Islam and to Muslims.”

The security forces in Iran found four Kurdish youths, Jamshid, Jehangeer Dehqani, Hamid Ahmedi and Kamal Mawlayee, guilty of Sheikh A’ali’s murder. But according to a report by Amnesty International the four were being held by the Iranian regime when the killing took place. Two Kurdish men, Hamed Ahmadi and Sedigh Mohammadi have been transferred to solitary confinement on September 26, sparking fears they are at imminent risk of execution Amnesty International said.  

Hamed Ahmadi and Sedigh Mohammadi are among six Sunni Muslim Kurdish men from Iran’s Kurdish minority who were sentenced to death after being convicted of vaguely-worded offences including “enmity against God” and “corruption on earth”.  “The news of the transfer of two Iranian Kurdish men to solitary confinement indicate the worst for the men. It is known as the execution waiting room for inmates sentenced to death,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa on September 26.