27.03.1997

New wave of executions

On February 22 12 people arrested for being ‘associated’ with the anti-government riots in April 1995 in Eslamshahr, a Teheran suburb, were executed. At least four of them were members of the Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran (Orwi).

Two Bahai’i believers were also executed. Eight other political activists - two belonging to the Organisation of Peoples Fadai’i (Minority) - arrested at the same time, were executed. Their belongings were handed over to their families by the Pol-e-Rumi Komitee.

Twelve others arrested ‘in association’ with the Eslamshahr riots were executed last November. Among these was Abbas Ghadiri, a worker in the Behpush textile factory and a known labour militant under the previous regime.

There have been other deaths. Gholam-Reza Afshar (Orwi) and Ali Molai’i (Fadai’i), who were asylum seekers in Pakistan, were abducted on October 18 1996 on their way from Quetta to Islamabad. On October 22 Molai’i’s mutilated body was thrown out of a car belonging to the Iranian embassy. The body of Gholam-Reza Afshar was later found with signs of torture on March 7 in the deserts outside Quetta.

Iranian Democracy Solidarity Campaign