Do not Execute!

Do not Execute!

On the Occasion of October 10, World Day against the Death Penalty

October 10 this year coincides with the campaign against the death sentences for the protesters in December 2017, August 2018 and November 2019 and the announcement of disgust with the execution of Navid Afkari, the sports hero of our country. However, despite the issuance of death sentences and the execution of these inhumane sentences by the Islamic Republic (IR), today we live in a world where nearly 170 countries abstain from the issuance and execution of death sentences in law and practice. Although 56 countries have not yet removed such punishments from their laws. Last year, only 17 countries executed death penalties, most of them in China, estimated at several thousand, and in the IR of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq with more than one hundred cases in each.

October 10 has been declared the World Day against the Death Penalty since 2003 by the “The World Coalition against the Death Penalty (WCADP)” and has since been designated by the European Union, the Council of Europe and the United Nations.

This year's slogan of the coalition is "Access to lawyer, a matter of life or death", with the belief that if defendants have access to lawyer of their choice in connection with crimes that could carry the death penalty, It may be possible to prevent the execution of many of these verdicts.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently presented his report on the state of the death penalty between July 2018 and May 2020 to the Human Rights Council, addressing various aspects of the death penalty and how it is implemented. In this report, the name of the IR has been repeatedly mentioned.

According to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the IR of Iran is also one of the few countries to carry out executions that "fair trial" process has not taken place for convicts and poor convicts in particular have been more vulnerable.

The IR of Iran, Saudi Arabia and South Sudan have been the only countries to execute "minor criminals" in the past two years, and the IR has unfortunately excelled in this regard, with about 90 children now estimated to be on death row. The IR of Iran is also one of the few countries to sentence people with mental disabilities to death.

By looking at the terrible and bloody record of the IR in terms of recognizing the "right to life" for the residents of our country, it is not without reason that the demand to stop and abolish the death penalty has an unprecedented extent among the people of the country. Following the confirmation of the death sentences of Amir Hossein Moradi, Saeed Tamjidi and Mohammad Rajabi in the Supreme Court, the hashtag "Do not Execute" was tweeted and retweeted millions of times and did not subside until their lawyers' request for retrial was accepted. Currently, "No to Execution", "Stop Execution", and "Stop Bloodshed" slogans, which consider the death penalty to be the result of state revenge and the continuation of a chain of violence in the society, are widespread among the people. Several years ago, a few human rights defenders and representatives of Iranian civil society formed the "LEGAM" organization to abolish the death penalty step by step. Some members of this organization, such as Nasrin Sotoudeh and Narges Mohammadi, have been heavily sentenced because of their roles. Due to rising this demand to the public level, continuation of their arbitrary detention does not result in any outcomes for the regime.

The execution of Navid Afkari, with its many ambiguities following an extremely unfair "trial” and based on forced confessions, has provoked a wave of disgust. The IR finds itself in a weak position, especially after the events of December 2017, August 2018, November 2019 and the protests related to the crash of the Ukrainian passenger plane due to the Revolutionary Guards’ missiles. Wishing such incidents would not be repeated, the regime tries to hide its weak position with intimidating the people by issuing death sentences for a number of arrested protesters.

The Left Party of Iran (People’s Fadaian), as a party whose core believes are based on the human rights values ​​and recognizes the "right to life" as one of the highest human rights, considers the inhuman and cruel death penalty to be "deliberate state murder" which is regrettably, still run by some regimes preceded by the IR of Iran. We hope that the joint struggle of all freedom-loving forces and human rights advocates will bear fruit so that our society can be free of the continuation of the cycle of such violence and the horrible and hateful word of "execution" will soon be a phenomenon of the past.

Political-Executive Board of the Left Party of Iran (People’s Fadaian)

October 7, 2020