Death Sentences for Ahwazi Arab Cultural Activists

Iran Human Rights Documentation Center - Two more Ahwazi Arab cultural activists have been sentenced to death on national security charges.

The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) has learned from informed sources that two Ahwazi Arab political prisoners have been sentenced to death in procedurally flawed trials in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), with a third co-defendant sentenced to imprisonment in exile. The death sentences come amidst a record surge in the numbers of executions of prisoners in the IRI, and add to the growing list of Ahwazi Arab cultural activists on death row.

On September 9, 2013, Seyyed Mohammad Bagher Mousavi, a judge in Branch 2 of the Revolutionary Court of Ahvaz, issued death sentences for detained cultural activists Ali Chobayshat and Yasin Mousavi, who were accused of complicity in the October 23, 2012 bombing on the Chogh Zanbil natural gas pipeline near the town of Shush, Khuzestan province. A third co-defendant, Salman Chayan, was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment in exile in Yazd, in Central Iran. IHRDC first reported on the status of the three prisoners in June, when they were still detained in a Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) detention center in Ahvaz.

A source close to the case has alleged that Abbas Torabi, the prisoners' court-appointed attorney and a former judge of the Revolutionary Court of Ahvaz, requested 3 billion Rials (about 120,000 USD at the time of this release) from each defendant's family. The request for money was allegedly specifically to bribe the judges overseeing the case to secure a better outcome. The source, a relative of Ali Chobayshat, adds that when the prisoners' families attempted to obtain copies of the court's judgment in the case, they were told to request copies from Torabi. But reports from local human rights activists have reiterated that Torabi was never allowed to meet with the defendants—all members of a cultural organization called al-Shabab ("Youth") in Khalaf Mosallam village near Shush—or their families. Although Torabi is a court-appointed attorney who is obliged to defend his clients pro bono, the attorney also reportedly asked for a payment of 50 million Rials (about 2,000 USD) per defendant in order to make an appeal to the two death sentences before the Supreme Court of Iran. It should be noted that the average GDP per capita in Khuzestan province is around 2,000 USD, and that the defendants and their families hail from a poor rural farming community. According to Article 236 of the IRI’s Code of Criminal Procedure, convicted persons have 20 days to appeal initial sentences to the relevant courts. That period reportedly passed without any appeal being registered—thereby potentially rendering the Revolutionary Court’s sentences as final.

Furthermore, Chobayshat’s relative has reported that the families of some of the defendants in the case, and one of the six other members of al-Shabab (who was initially arrested along with Chobayshat, Mousavi and Chayan at Chobayshat's mother's funeral) attempted but failed to secure alternative legal representation from several private attorneys in the province. Reportedly, shortly after the attorneys were approached, the attorney contacted the relatives and the former detainee and informed them that they could not take the case.

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