Iran Must NOT Hang Sunni Political Prisoner Kamal Molaee

Four Sunni prisoners on death row, Hamed Ahmadi, Jahangir Dehghani, Jamshid Dehghani and Kamal Molaee, have been transferred to solitary confinement and are scheduled to be executed on Sunday 15 June on the charge of “enmity against God” (moharebeh), only days after reports of the secret execution of Ali Chebieshat and Sayed Khaled Mousawi on the same charge, according to Amnesty International. Two weeks ago another Iranian political prisoner, Gholamreza Khosravi, was also hanged.

The families of the four men were called on 13 June to visit their relatives for the last time before their death sentence will be implemented in Rajae Shahr prison on 15 June. The four are accused of killing Mullah Mohammad Sheikh al-Islam, a senior Sunni cleric with ties to the Iranian authorities. The men deny the accusation, saying that they had been arrested between June and July 2009, several months before the sheikh’s killing in September 2009, and that they have been targeted solely because they practiced or promoted their faith, such as taking part in Sunni religious seminars and distributing Sunni reading materials. The Supreme Court had upheld the death sentences in September 2013, and the sentences had been sent to the Office for the Implementation of Sentences, the official body in charge of carrying out executions.

Amnesty International has stressed that the Islamic Republic of Iran's judicial authorities sentenced the four men to death after trials during which basic safeguards, such as rights of defense, were disregarded, in contravention of international fair trial standards.