Iran executes five Kurds, among them a young woman sentenced as a teenager

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Five Iranian Kurds (Rojhilatis) were executed on Tuesday, among them a young woman who was handed the sentence as a teenager two years after her marriage, a rights group reported.

“The Iranian authorities must urgently halt their plans to execute Zeinab Sekaanvand,” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, pleaded on Monday after the announcement of the regime’s plan was made.

Luther highlighted “she was arrested when she was just 17 years old and sentenced to death for the murder of her husband, whom she married at the age of 15.”

“Not only was she a child at the time of the crime, she was subjected to a grossly unfair legal process.”

Along with Sekaanvand, four other Kurds were executed in Urmia Prison according to Hengaw, a group writing on human rights issues involving Kurds in Iran.

Hengaw did not go into the details on the cases of the other detainees, only releasing the names of three: Changeez Irani, Mousa Jajilou, and Salman Alilou.

According to Amnesty International, among the 23 countries that carried out death sentences in 2017, “Iran executed at least 507 people.” At least 31 of those executions were public, and five of those executed were under 18 years old. These numbers account for more than half of all recorded executions in 2017.

From March through September, Iran has hanged over 40 Iranian Kurds and sentenced just under a dozen other activists to death, Hengaw added.

Other recent cases that garnered international attention were that of Ramin Hussein Panahi and two cousins Loghman and Zaniar Moradi who were executed on Sep. 08.

Editing by Nadia Riva