October 10, 2020/Hengaw Report on Death Execution of Nearly 400 Kurdish Citizens Over the Past Five Years

Hengaw: In coinciding with the eighteenth anniversary of the International Day against the Death Penalty, Hengaw Organization for Human Rights publishes the death execution statistics of the Kurdish citizens, including the execution of 46 Kurdish political and religious activists. 

Several Human Rights Organizations decided to name October 10th as world day against death penalty in a global coalition against death penalty in 2003. The Europe Union officially declared October 10th to be the world day against death penalty in 2007.

Conccurent to the eighteenth commemoration of October 10th, Hengaw Human Rights Organization has published the death penalty statistics in Kurdistan since 2016 to 2020 in Iranian prisons.

Based on the statistics registered by Hengaw, since the begining of 2016 to October 10th, 2020, at least 391 Kurdish citizens have been executed by death penalty in Iranian prisons.

Based on the statistics registered in Hengaw, during this time at least 5 detainees who were younger than 18 years of age at the time of commiting the crime were executed to death in Kurdistan prisons. They were identified as: Zeynab Sakawandi in Urmia prison, Farhad Akbari in Ilam prison, Hamid Owsati in Kermanshah prison, Amin Mohammadpour in Urmia prison and Shayan Saeedpour in Saqqez prison were executed by hanging.

Death execution in public

During this period, at least 12 citizens, 3% in total, were executed by hanging in public, 8 cases of these death penalties were registered in 2017. Five Kurdish citizens in Ilam, two citizens in Sarpol Zahab and Rawansar, Eslamabad Gharb, Kermanshah Province, and Salmas, Khoy in West Azarbaijan Province, and five other citizens were executed in public in Mashhad in Razavi Khorasan.

Deviding the death penalty cases based on political or religious activities: 46 cases, 12% in total
Drug related crimes: 154 cases, 37.5% in total
Homicide: 194 cases, 49.5% in total
Theft: 3 cases, 0.5% in total
Rape: 3 cases, 0.5% in total

Provincial classification

Most of the death executions were carried out in West Azerbaijan Province during the past 5 years which is 187 cases. Kermanshah and Kurdistan Provinces have 69 and 67 cases accordingly which gives them the second and third place.
West Azerbaijan Province: 187 cases, 48% in total
Kermanshah Province: 69 cases, 17.5% in total
Kurdistan Province: 67 cases, 17% in total
Lorestan Province: 35 cases, 9% in total
Ilam Province: 20 cases, 5% in total
Razavi Khorasan Province and North Khorasan Province: 11 cases, 3% in total
Gilan Province: 1 case, 0.25% in total
Ghazvin Province: 1 case, 0.26% in total

Killing  and wounding of two teenagers by Police Forces in Kermanshah

Hengaw: Police forces in Kermanshah shoot a citizen's car in DowlatAbad neighborhood and killed a 17-year-old teenager and wounded another one.

According to the report received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights on Thursday evening, October 15, 2020, the police force in DowlatAbad police station in Kermanshah opened fire to a Peugeot 405.

Hengaw reporter declared that as a result of police shooting, a teenager named Ashkan Azizi, aged 17, got killed and another  teenager named Borhan Azizi, aged 17, severely injured. 

According  to an informed source, Borhan Azizi is now in a hospital for being in a coma.

These two teenagers are from Dara Drej (Mehdi Town) neighborhood. Police forces shot their car for not having a car tag.