Protests continue as Kurdish political prisoner Panahi to be executed Thursday

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A Kurdish political prisoner in Iran is scheduled to be executed later this week following an unfair trial, Iran Human Rights (IHR) said on Tuesday.

Political prisoner Ramin Hossein Panahi “has been transferred to the solitary confinement of Sanandaj Prison and scheduled to be executed on Thursday [May 3, 2018],” his brother Amjad told IHR.

Relatives and Kurds in Sanandaj (Sina), Kurdistan Province gathered in front of the United Nations building on Tuesday to protest the execution.

The sentence was confirmed last month, despite the Kurdish activist’s lawyer, Hossein Ahmadi Niaz, arguing that Panahi’s “confessions were extracted under torture.”

A few days later, UN human rights rapporteurs called on Iran to annul the death sentence against the Kurdish prisoner, voicing “serious concerns” that Panahi had not received a fair trial.

“Executing Mr. Panahi, following his torture, and unfair trial and on the basis of charges that do not meet international standards for the use of death penalty, would be unconscionable,” the experts Agnes Callamard, Dainius Puras, and Nils Melzer said in a joint statement released in Geneva.

“We urge the Government of Iran to annul the death sentence,” they said in the statement on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights website.

Panahi was handed the death penalty by an Iranian court in Sina on Jan. 15 for “acting against national security” and being a member of the Kurdish opposition group, Komala.

In June 2017, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran shot dead three members of Komala and took an injured Panahi into custody.

Panahi, who was shot three times, was reportedly transported to a hospital in Sina but was then taken into custody half an hour later before receiving proper treatment.