An Iranian court has sentenced another Kurdish protester to death for ‘spying for Israel’, the Hengaw Human Rights Organisation has reported.
Shahin Wasaf, a 27-year-old Kurd and his cousin Nasser Wasaf, from Salmas in West Azerbaijan province, were arrested by Iranian intelligence agents in Urmia during the nationwide Jin, Jiyan, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom) protests in September 2022. They were later sent to the city’s central prison.
The two were tried without legal representation and both were denied the right to family visits or access to a lawyer throughout their detention, according to the Norwegian-based rights group. While at the Intelligence Agency’s Urmia Detention Centre they were also allegedly subjected to severe torture aimed at extracting false confessions and forcing them to accept charges of spying for Israel.
Shahin Wasaf was officially informed of his death sentence in Urmia’s central prison on 3 October 2023. Nasser Wasaf has only recently been released from prison.
This case adds to concerns about human rights practices in Iran, particularly the treatment of Kurds and the judicial process in certain areas.
According to the Human Rights Activists in Iran News Agency (HRANA), the number of people executed across Iran reached a 12-month high in January, with at least 35 people sentenced to death during the month.
No fewer than 86 people were executed in January, HRANA said, stressing that the death penalty in Iran is “routinely imposed after trials that fail to meet due process guarantees, in a judicial system that lacks transparency and impartiality, and for crimes that do not constitute the most serious crimes under international law”.