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An activist from Iran’s Kurdish minority is at risk of execution after her death sentence was upheld by the supreme court, rights groups said Thursday, adding she was being punished for her humanitarian work.
Pakhshan Azizi, 40, had been sentenced to death in June after being convicted of “rebellion” following her arrest in August of 2023. She is being held in the women’s wing of Tehran’s Evin prison.
Her lawyer Amir Raisian had filed an appeal to the supreme court, but “unfortunately, regardless of the numerous flaws in the case, the appeal was rejected, and the death sentence was confirmed”.
Quoted on Wednesday by the Tehran daily Shargh, Raisian said he would now submit a request for a retrial.
Azizi is accused of involvement with outlawed Kurdish armed groups that operate in the region, but her lawyers have denied she has any link to the organisations.
Amnesty International has called Azizi’s trial “grossly unfair”, describing her as a humanitarian worker and civil society activist who from 2014 to 2022 had helped women and children in camps in northeast Syria and northern Iraq after they were displaced by the Islamic State group.
It said she had been subjected to “enforced disappearance”, as well as “torture and other ill-treatment during interrogations”.
Lawyer Raisian complained that the courts had paid no attention to evidence that her activities in the camps were “peaceful”, and “had no political dimension and were centred around providing relief aid”.
Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, which this week reported that 31 women had been executed in Iran in 2024, said the prosecution of Azizi was aimed at intimidating society after 2022-2023 protests that were led by women and were particularly intense in Kurdish-populated areas of Iran.
“This unlawful sentence, issued to instill societal fear to prevent new protests must be condemned by the international community in the strongest terms,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
Iranian 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who was imprisoned in Evin alongside Azizi but is currently on leave from jail on health grounds, said it “is our duty not to remain silent” in the face of the risk to her life.
“The confirmation of Pakhshan Azizi’s death sentence by the Supreme Court reflects the regime’s determination to escalate the suppression of women and take revenge on the magnificent and powerful ‘Woman. Life. Freedom’ (protest) movement,” she wrote on social media.
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