UN consultants urge Iran to cease execution of girl activist

[ad_1] UN consultants and 400 outstanding ladies have urged Iran to not execute Zahra Tabari, a 67-year-old electrical engineer and ladies's rights activist.

Ms Tabari was arrested in April and accused of collaborating with a banned opposition group, the Folks's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), in keeping with her household.

In October, she was convicted of "armed revolt" by a Revolutionary Court docket in Rasht after a trial by way of video hyperlink that lasted lower than 10 minutes. Her household stated the decision was primarily based on extraordinarily restricted and unreliable proof: a bit of material bearing the phrases "Girl, Resistance, Freedom", and an unpublished audio message.

Iranian authorities haven't but commented on the case.

Not less than 51 different individuals are identified to be going through the dying penalty in Iran after being convicted of nationwide safety offences together with armed revolt, in addition to "enmity towards God", "corruption on Earth" and espionage, in keeping with the UN consultants.

The UN Human Rights Council's particular rapporteurs on human rights in Iran, violence towards ladies and arbitrary executions, in addition to the 5 members of the working group on discrimination towards ladies and women, warned in a joint assertion that Ms Tabari's case confirmed "a sample of significant violations of worldwide human rights legislation".

She was arrested throughout a raid on her residence and not using a judicial warrant, and was interrogated for a month whereas held in solitary confinement and pressured to admit to taking over arms towards the state and to membership in an opposition group, in keeping with the consultants.

Ms Tabari was denied entry to a lawyer of her selecting and was represented by a court-appointed lawyer, they stated, including that her dying sentence was issued instantly after a quick listening to.

"The extreme procedural violations on this case - together with the illegal deprivation of her liberty, the denial of efficient authorized illustration, the terribly transient trial, the dearth of sufficient time to organize a defence, and the usage of proof that seems inadequate to assist a cost of [armed rebellion] - render any ensuing conviction unsafe," they stated.

Additionally they famous that worldwide legislation restricted the dying penalty to essentially the most critical crimes, which means intentional killing.

"To execute Tabari beneath these circumstances would represent arbitrary execution," the consultants added. "Criminalising ladies's activism for gender equality and treating such expression as proof of armed revolt constitutes a grave type of gender discrimination."

Greater than 400 outstanding ladies - together with a number of Nobel laureates, the previous presidents of Switzerland and Ecuador, and former prime ministers of Finland, Peru, Poland and Ukraine - additionally signed a public enchantment for Ms Tabari's quick launch on Tuesday.

"Iran is at this time the world's primary executioner of ladies per capita. Zahra's case lays naked this terror: in Iran, daring to carry an indication declaring ladies's resistance to oppression is now punishable by dying," it stated.

The enchantment was organised by Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Bloodbath in Iran, a UK-based group that represents the households of the hundreds of political prisoners who had been executed in Iran three a long time in the past.

One other Iranian girl, Kurdish rights activist and social employee Pakhshan Azizi, can also be going through the dying penalty on the identical cost as Ms Tabari.

UN consultants have beforehand stated Ms Azizi's sentencing gave the impression to be "solely associated to her reputable work as a social employee, together with her assist for refugees in Iraq and Syria".

In keeping with Iran Human Rights (IHR), at the very least 1,426 folks - together with 41 ladies - had been executed in Iran within the first 11 months of 2025 - a 70% enhance on the identical interval final 12 months.

Nearly half of these put to dying as of the top of November had been convicted of drug-related offences, whereas 53 had been convicted of nationwide safety offences, the Norway-based group stated.