Iran: Stop the execution of two Kurdish journalists and environmental activists

Kurdish journalist Adnan Hassanpour (pictured), and his cousin, environmental activist Abdolwahed Butimer (known as Hiwa), both from Iran’s Kordestan province have been sentenced to death on charges of espionage.

Kurdish journalist and cultural rights activist Adnan Hassanpour, was detained in January 2007, and his cousin Hiwa Butimar who heads an environment organisation called The Green Mountain Society, was detained in December 2006. Both are being held in Marivan prison, Kordestan province.

The men were told on 17 that they had been sentenced to death on charges of espionage and Moharebeh (being at enmity with God). The sentences are subject to appeal and must then be confirmed by Iran’s Supreme Court.

According to an interview held between online publication Rooz, and the two men’s lawyer, the charges against Adnan Hassanpour appear to relate to a “phone conversation he had with a staff member of Radio Voice of America.”

Evidence reportedly used against the cousins in a tribunal that fell below international fair trial standards,  includes Kurdish flags, videos in Kurdish and photographs of a family trip to Iraq Kurdistan.

Adnan Hassanpout is a former member of the editorial board of the Kurdish –Persian weekly journal Aso (Horizon), which was closed down by the authorities in August 2005 following widespread unrest in Kurdish areas. Adnan Hassanpour had previously reportedly been tried for offences supposedly arising from articles published in the journal.

Another journalist, and a member of the Kurdistan Journalists' Association, Mansour Tayfouri, was reportedly detained with the two men in Marivan on or around 8 March. Nothing more is known about him.

Death Penalty

At least 143 people have already been executed in Iran so far this year, an execution rate in excess of even that in 2006, when a minimum of 177 people were executed during the year making the country the second highest user of the death penalty in the world.

Executions have been carried out for a range of offences, including a case earlier this month when a man was stoned to death for “adultery”. The woman in the same case remains under a death by stoning sentence.

In a separate case, earlier this month a teenager came within hours of being hanged before the execution was postponed following an international outcry and moves to pay “blood money” to the victim’s relatives. It is the second time Sina Paymard, 18, the condemned man, has avoided death at the last moment. At his earlier scheduled hanging in September last year he was allowed to play a flute as a “last request” even as the hangman’s noose was around his neck. He was spared on that occasion as the victim’s family were reported to be so moved by the man’s flute-playing that they were willing to enter into negotiations over a blood money payment.

Sina was 16 at the time of crime for which he was sentenced to death. Iran is the only country in the world to have recently executed child offenders, a practice forbidden under international law. Read more about Sina's case

Freedom of Expression

An opening up of the space for reporting, including on human rights issues, under the reformist government of former President Khatami, has been severely curtailed since 2004.

Since then, hundreds of publications have been closed, either temporarily or permanently; scores of journalists, particularly those that are critical of the regime or cover “sensitive” issues – including those covering women's and minority rights -  have been arrested, tried, or harassed in connection with their work. Many have faced vaguely worded charges such as “propaganda against the system” or “insulting the leadership”; and some have received death threats.  Others who have travelled abroad have been harassed on their return.

Other Kurdish human rights defenders and journalists have also been detained recently including Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand, the head of the Kurdish Human Rights Organisation and editor of banned weekly newspaper Payam-e Mardom.

• Read Amnesty's press release
• Find out more about Amnesty's campaign to abolish the death penalty
• Find out more about the situation in Iran

Kurdish journalist Adnan Hassanpour (pictured), and his cousin, environmental activist Abdolwahed Butimer (known as Hiwa), both from Iran’s Kordestan province have been sentenced to death on charges of espionage.

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