Iran hangs Kurdish dissident - opposition

09 August 2015

London, 9 Aug - Iran on Sunday hanged a Kurdish dissident in a prison in Tabriz, northwest Iran, without giving prior notice to his family, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said.

Sirvan Nezhavi had been charged with ‘Moharebeh’, or 'waging war on God', for membership in a Kurdish group opposed to the regime.

He was arrested on 5 July 2011 in Karaj, northwest of Tehran.

The NCRI quoted Sirvan Nezhavi’s brother Hossein as saying that the family were only informed of Sirvan’s execution when authorities in Tabriz Prison contacted them to go and collect his body. They were not granted a final visit.

Sirvan and another political prisoner had been transferred to solitary confinement on Saturday, the NCRI said.

Sirvan Nezhavi was sentenced to death on 11 April 2012 by a branch of Iran’s Revolutionary courts without being able to choose his defence lawyer. He death sentence was later approved by the Supreme Court.

Sirvan was among a group of six political prisoners who were transferred last February to an unknown location, according to the main Iranian opposition coalition. Two members of the group Ali and Habiballah Afshari were hanged but there was no information on the remaining four until recently.

In July 2015, authorities informed the two dissidents’ relatives that they had been hanged on 19 February 2015 and ordered them to pay for the cost of the execution, the NCRI said.