Kamran Sheikha's Death Sentence Executed After 15 Years of Detention

Some human rights media report the execution of Kamran Sheikha, a prisoner from Mahabad and the last defendant in a case where other defendants have also been executed previously. According to reports from Hengaw and Kurdpa news agencies, Mr. Sheikha's sentence was carried out at dawn on Thursday, July 25, after years of imprisonment. Amnesty International had noted in late May this year that Kamran Sheikha was transferred to solitary confinement and was at imminent risk of execution. Previously, human rights organizations had warned that with the end of the presidential elections in Iran, the likelihood of executions and issuance of death sentences would increase. The judiciary of the Islamic Republic had previously executed six other Kurdish prisoners with a shared case between November 2023 and January 2024, which drew widespread criticism from international human rights organizations. These seven individuals were arrested in December 2009 on charges of killing Imam Abdul Rahim Tina, the prayer leader of the Khalafaye Rashidin Mosque in Mahabad, who was killed by unknown individuals in 2008, and were interrogated for months in the Urmia Intelligence Department detention center. Four of the defendants in this case, including Qasem Abasteh, Ayoub Karimi, Davood Abdollahi, and Farhad Salimi, were executed in the second half of last year, and the sentences of Anwar Khazari and Khosrow Basharat were also carried out in May 2024. Human rights organizations have repeatedly reported on the 'severe torture' of these prisoners and the extraction of 'forced confessions' from them. The defendants in this case were sentenced to death in 2015 by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, presided over by Judge Moghiseh, on charges such as 'acting against national security,' 'propaganda against the regime,' 'membership in Salafi groups,' and 'corruption on earth.' Reports indicate that the Supreme Court annulled this sentence in 2018, but in June 2019, they were once again sentenced to death by Judge Salavati, and the Supreme Court confirmed this sentence in February of the same year. Recently, Human Rights Watch has urged the newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian to start 'real changes' in Iran by halting death sentences. Meanwhile, in recent days, the judiciary of the Islamic Republic has also issued death sentences for Sharifeh Mohammadi, a labor activist, and Pakhshan Azizi, a social worker and political prisoner. The execution of Kamran Sheikha's sentence and the issuance of new death sentences have occurred while prisoners of the 'Tuesdays No to Execution' campaign warned in mid-July, during their twenty-fourth week of hunger strike, about the potential increase in executions after the elections.