PARIS, JAN 22 – Thirty Iranian political prisoners, including the Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah and the daughter of former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, have signed an appeal calling for the executions of protesters to cease. “We, political and ideological inmates of the women’s ward of Evin prison (Tehran), demand an end to the executions of protesters and an end to the unjust sentences inflicted on prisoners in Iran”, reads this text sent to AFP. “Whatever our religious and political beliefs and origins, we have all been sentenced, for a total of 124 years in prison, following unfair and non-transparent procedures. That equates to several generations of human life.” In addition to Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in June 2019 and then sentenced to five years in prison for undermining national security, and Faezeh Hashemi, sentenced in January to 5 years in prison for criticizing the regime, the German-Iranian Nahid Taghavi, women’s rights activist, sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2021 and Niloufar Bayani, environmental activist, sentenced in 2020 to ten years in prison for espionage. According to the Norwegian NGO Iran Human Rights, at least 481 people have been killed and at least 109 people are at risk of execution in connection with the protests, in addition to the four already hanged. Tehran acknowledges hundreds of dead, including members of the security forces. The UN also counted 14,000 arrests in the four months of protests that began in mid-September after the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, following his arrest by the deputy police for violating the dress code. (HANDLE).
(ANSA)
