Life of Pakhshan Azizi in imminent danger after second retrial appeal rejected
Hengaw: Sunday, April 6, 2025
The life of Kurdish political prisoner Pakhshan Azizi is in serious danger, following the rejection of a second request for retrial by Iran’s Supreme Court. Her death sentence now faces an increased risk of being carried out.
According to reports received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Maziar Tataei, Azizi’s lawyer, confirmed that the Supreme Court dismissed the second retrial petition related to the death sentence issued against the imprisoned journalist and political activist currently held in Evin Prison.
Tataei wrote on the platform X:
“The Supreme Court branch handling the case rejected the second retrial request without even reviewing the original trial documents and declared the defense arguments of Pakhshan’s legal team to be baseless. Such a conclusion logically requires examining the trial records—unfortunately, this was never done.”
Previously, on February 6, 2025, the first request for a retrial was also rejected by Branch 9 of Iran’s Supreme Court.
Pakhshan Azizi was sentenced to death on June 14, 2024, on charges of “armed rebellion (baghi)”. While in detention, she was also handed a six-month prison sentence in a separate case opened by Branch 3 of the Evin Prosecutor’s Office, accusing her of “instigating unrest in prison.”
Her death sentence was later upheld in mid-January 2025 by Branch 39 of the Supreme Court.
Azizi was originally arrested on August 4, 2023, in the Kharazi neighborhood of Tehran by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence. On December 11, 2023, she was transferred from the ministry’s detention center within Evin to the women’s ward of the prison.
On November 16, 2009, she was arrested during a student protest at the University of Tehran against the execution of political prisoners in Kurdistan. She was released on March 19, 2010, after four months in detention, on bail of 100 million tomans.
In later years, facing ongoing threats and pressure from security forces, Azizi was forced to leave Iran. While abroad, she focused on research and social work, particularly on the situation of women in Iraqi Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan, contributing to efforts aimed at improving women’s rights in the region.
