Amnesty International urged Iran yesterday to open its prisons to international monitors and halt the use of executions as a “lethal instrument of repression” as protesters plan to mark the anniversary of last year’s disputed presidential election.
A statement by the London-based rights group is among a wave of denunciations against Iran’s leadership timed to coincide with the one-year anniversary on Saturday of the election, which set off the nation’s worst internal upheaval since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian authorities have carried out widespread arrests and crackdowns to quell violent street protests that erupted after the re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on June 12 last year — who critics claim was returned to power through massive vote rigging.
Opposition leaders repeatedly pledge to continue their fight, but street rallies have been snuffed out in recent months by intense pressure from security forces. Hundreds of political figures, activists, journalists and others have been arrested.
“The Iranian government is determined to silence all dissenting voices, while at the same time trying to avoid all scrutiny by the international community into the violations connected to the post-election unrest,” said Claudio Cordone, Amnesty International’s interim secretary-general.
Amnesty urged Iranian leaders to allow UN human rights observers to visit jails and other detention facilities to investigate claims of abuses, rape and torture.
The group also accused Iran of carrying out the hangings of five Kurdish activists in May to send a “clear message” to dissidents seeking to revive street demonstrations on the election anniversary.
“Politically motivated executions, recently taking place prior to key anniversaries when mass protests are expected ... with the justice system used as a lethal instrument of repression by the Iranian authorities,” the statement said.
At least six more inmates are on death row charged with alleged involvement in demonstrations and membership of banned groups.
Amnesty said Iran has one of the highest rates of executions in the world — with more than 115 executions recorded by the group this year in Iran.
“The Iranian authorities must end this campaign of fear that aims to crush even the slightest opposition to the government,” Cordone said. “They are continuing to use the death penalty as a tool of repression, right up to the eve of the anniversary of the election.”
He appealed for Iran to free political prisoners and hold open trials for others.
“What we are calling for is very simple — the immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience and for others to be tried promptly on recognizably criminal offenses, without recourse to the death penalty, in proceedings which fully meet international standards for a fair trial,” Cordone said.
In related news, Iran has sentenced award-winning woman journalist Jila Baniyaghoob to jail for one year and banned her from writing for 30 years over post-election unrest, a newspaper reported yesterday.
Baniyaghoob, 39, “has been sentenced to one year in jail and banned from journalistic work for 30 years,” moderate daily Shargh said.
Baniyaghoob, who had been working for a string of best-selling but now closed reformist newspapers, was arrested on June 20 last year along with her husband and released on bail two months later.
She was charged with propaganda against the Islamic regime over her reports on last year’s disputed presidential election and the protests which followed the official results, the Kaleme.com Web site of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said.
The International Women’s Media Foundation gave Baniyaghoob its courage in journalism award last year.
Her husband, Bahman Ahmadi Amooi, who is an economic journalist, has been jailed for five years on security charges over his articles in reformist newspapers.
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