Execution of 7 Individuals in Iran; One Prisoner Executed Due to Lack of Evidence Based on 'Qasameh'

Human rights sources reported that in recent days, at least seven prisoners were executed by the judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic in various cities across Iran. The judiciary executed one of these citizens due to the lack of sufficient evidence for conviction, following the holding of a 'Qasameh' ceremony. According to the report by the Human Rights Activists in Iran, four prisoners were executed at dawn on Wednesday, October 25, in Qazalhasar prison in Alborz province. The identities of three of them were confirmed as 'Abdul Bari Tajik and Pasha Pashto, Afghan nationals, and Javid Ahmadkhani'. These individuals were executed in connection with drug-related crimes. Additionally, the Iran Human Rights Organization reported on Wednesday that a citizen named Younes Akhtar Samar, who was accused of 'premeditated murder', was executed on Monday, October 23, in Jiroft prison because 'there was not enough evidence in his case, and he was sentenced to qisas based on the Qasameh ceremony and the judge's knowledge.' According to Islamic penal law, 'when there is no evidence of the accused's commission of murder, the complainant is asked to present 50 male relatives to swear that the accused is the murderer'; this ceremony is called 'Qasameh'. Previously, Hossein Raeisi, a lawyer and legal expert, told Voice of America that Qasameh is a 'very, very backward' and 'systematic revenge' method that, as one of the ways to prove premeditated murder in Islamic penal law, increases the risk of execution and leads society to rely on very backward traditional persuasive evidence instead of seeking scientific evidence for crime detection. The Iran Human Rights Organization also reported that a citizen identified as Nasser Mohammadi (Hengravani) was executed on Tuesday, October 24, in Urmia Central Prison for 'the premeditated murder of his wife'. This human rights organization also reported that another citizen named Ammar Asiyan was executed on Sunday, October 22, in Kerman Central Prison on charges of 'premeditated murder'. Members of the 'No to Execution Tuesdays' campaign emphasized the need to stop the issuance and execution of death sentences in Iran, stating that only in the past seven days, the judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic executed 36 individuals. Two of these executed citizens were child offenders, identified as Mahdi Barahoui and Ali Shirvani, who were 17 and 15 years old at the time of committing the crime. Previously, Shirin Ebadi, head of the Defenders of Human Rights Center and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, stated that 'the Islamic Republic's approach to all challenges and problems is nothing but physical elimination and repression, and year after year, the number of executions rises because death is the true identity of the government.'