Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdish political prisoner imprisoned in Evin jail, has been sentenced to death in Tehran.
Branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, headed by Judge Iman Afshari, sentenced Pakhshan Azizi to death for charges such as “membership of a group opposed to the country”.*
According to the news agency of Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA), this sentence was delivered to Ms Azizi on July 23rd.
Ms Azizi’s court hearings were held on May 28th and June 16th. The court accused Pakhshan Azizi of “armed uprising against the Islamic government through membership in opposition groups”.
On August 4th 2023, Pakhshan Azizi, originally from Mahabad in Kurdistan province, was arrested by the security forces in Tehran and transferred to Ward 209 of Evin prison. In December 2023, she was transferred to the women’s ward.
Ms Azizi has been deprived of the right to visits by her family and to have a lawyer present during her detention. She was subjected to physical and psychological torture to make false confessions. On July 31, a letter from Azizi was published on the Hengaw human rights website. In it she mentioned various pressures, tortures and threats in prison. These included: “I have been hanged many times by the interrogators.”
Pakhshan Azizi was first arrested at the end of November 2009 at a gathering of Tehran University’s Kurdish students protesting against political executions in Kurdistan. She was released on bail in March 2010.
The Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign strongly condemns the arrest and continuing detention of Pakhshan Azizi and all Kurdish activists and citizens in Iran and calls for their immediate and unconditional release. We urge all trade unionists, socialists and other political activists to help us in defending the rights of all workers, political prisoners and social rights’ activists in Iran.
Free all political prisoners in Iran!
Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign
28 July 2024
* Judge Iman Afshari is under human rights sanctions by several countries.
Source: HRANA, Hengaw
