Araz News:Lack of transparency of Iranian judiciary has caused a confusion about the fate of death row Sunni prisoners who had been taken to solitary confinements on Monday. In the newest remarks, the Attorney General has declared the number of executed prisoners to be 20. Such a high number of executions is in itself rare.

It should be noted that,after 36 death row Sunni prisoners were taken unexpectedly to solitary confinements of Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj, the families of at least 21 of them were summoned to the prison for the last visit. However none of them managed to show up in the prison because of long distances and abnormal rush in carrying out the executions.

Some of the families were told on their way to the prison that the executions had been carried out and they had to go to Kahrizak forensics to receive the corpses.

A few families who had been able to travel the long distances went to the forensics and only three of them were allowed to see the corpses of their children.

Judiciary of Kurdistan Province as well as the Intelligence Ministry published statements yesterday and today and reported about suppressing a group named “Towhid and Jihad” and executing its members. Although the Ministry of Intelligence declared arresting a hundred of the members of this extremist group but either of the statements didn’t comment on the number of executed prisoners and their number.

On the other hand the telephones in the prison have been cut since Monday, there are strong restrictions in prisoners’ movements inside the prison even to the clinic and there have been no prison visits. The noise on the prison has increased so that the cellphones have no network coverage either.

Under such circumstances it is not possible to publish the exact identities and number of executed prisoners.

The unofficial sources have reported the execution of 3 other prisoners namely Hekmat Araqi, Hamze Araqi and Ali Araqi which sums up the whole number to 25 so far. However in the most transparent remark of an official, the Attorney General talked of 20 executions.

Kave Veisi, Behrouz Shahnazari, Taleb Maleki, Shahram Ahmadi, Kave Sharifi, Arash Sharifi, Varya Ghaderifard, Keyvan Momenifard, Barzan Nasrollahzade, Alem Barmashti, Pourya Mohammadi, Ahmad Nasiri, Edris Nemati, Farzad Honarju, Seyed Shahu Ebrahimi, Mohammad Yavar Rahimi, Bahman Rahimi, Mokhtar Rahimi, Mohammad Gharibi, Farshid Naseri, Mohammad Keyvan Karimi, Amjad Salehi, Omid Peyvand, Ali Mojahedi, Hekmat Sharifi, Omar Abdollahi, Omid Mahmudi, Abdolrahman Sangani and Seyed Jamal Seyed Musavi were the 29 Sunni prisoners whose sentences have been sent to the executive branch.

The other 7 prisoners whose cases are still in the primary stage and their sentences cannot be executed before the end of trial procedures are: Ghasem Abeste, Davud Abdollahi, Kamran Sheykhe, Khosro Besharat, Ayub Karimi, Anvar Khezri and Farhad Salimi.

It is to say that despite being still kept in solitary confinements of IRGC, Barzan Nasrollahzade, Teymour Naderzade and Farshid Naseri have called their families and informed them about their wellbeing today.

The Ministry of Intelligence officials also have called the families of Omid Mahmudi, Mohammad Gharibi, Ahmad Nasiri, Keyvan Momenifard and Varya Ghaderifard and told them to show up in the Kahrizak forensics to see the corpses of the their children.

Kave Sharifi, another executed prisoner had suffered a heart attack two days before the execution and transferred to a hospital. However he was brought back to the prison and executed.

This unexampled raid to ward just some days after airing the confessions of some of these prisoners increases the probability of some prisoners’ execution in coming days.

The judicial authorities accused these people of membership in the islamist group of “Towhid and Jihad” and claim that they had participated in terrorism and robberies. This claim was widely and constantly denied by the prisoners. The believed their religious belief was the only reason of their death sentences.

Shahram Ahmadi was also among the executed prisoners. The UN Secretary General had brought up his case in a report in March, calling it an example of lack of religious freedom in Iran.

BY_HRA