Drohende Hinrichtungen am 26. Juni

Hourieh Sabahi, Leila Hayati und Roghieh Khalaji sowie zwei Männer, deren Namen Amnesty International nicht bekannt sind, wurden am 30. Januar 2009 festgenommen. Die fünf Personen sollen niedrigrangige Mitglieder eines Drogenrings sein. Während der Verhöre hatten sie keinen Zugang zu einem Rechtsbeistand. Ihr Verfahren fand vor der Abteilung 2 des Revolutionsgerichts von Hamedan statt, das Todesurteile gegen sie verhängte. Die Todesstrafe ist im Iran zwingend vorgeschrieben, wenn der Schuldspruch wegen des Schmuggels einer bestimmten Droge erfolgte und die Menge ein festgesetztes Maß übersteigt. Die zum Tode Verurteilten hatten keine Möglichkeit Rechtsmittel einzulegen, weil die Todesurteile lediglich von der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft bestätigt wurden, wie es das Anti-Drogengesetz vorschreibt. Berichte deuten darauf hin, dass die Todesurteile bereits am 26. Juni vollstreckt werden könnten.

Die drei Frauen sind Mütter minderjähriger Kinder, die gegenwärtig von Verwandten versorgt werden. Hourieh Sabahi hat vier Kinder, von denen eines eine Behinderung hat. Zwei der Kinder sind 13 bzw. 15 Jahre alt, wie alt die übrigen sind, ist Amnesty International nicht bekannt. Leila Hayati hat einen zehnjährigen Sohn, und Roghieh Khalaji ist Mutter eines 14-jährigen Sohnes und einer zwölfjährigen Tochter. Die Ehemänner der drei Frauen sollen drogenabhängig sein. Sie können ihre Familien nicht ernähren, weil sie entweder lebenslange Haftstrafen verbüßen oder obdachlos sind. Weil sie deshalb in Armut leben, sehen die Frauen zur Sicherung des Unterhaltes der Familie keine andere Option, als mit Drogen zu handeln.

MenschenrechtsexpertInnen der UN haben wiederholt deutlich gemacht, dass Drogendelikte nicht "zu den schwersten Verbrechen" gehören, auf die sich das Völkerrecht bezüglich der Frage bezieht, bei welchen Straftaten die Todesstrafe noch angewendet werden darf, wenn ein Staat die Todesstrafe noch nicht abgeschafft hat.

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• Ich fordere Sie auf, die gegen Hourieh Sabahi, Leila Hayati und Roghieh Khalaji sowie zwei Männer verhängten Todesurteile unverzüglich umzuwandeln.

• Die fünf Personen haben den mir vorliegenden Informationen zufolge kein faires Gerichtsverfahren erhalten; man hat ihnen vor dem Verfahren den Kontakt zu einem Rechtsbeistand verweigert, und auch ihr Recht, gegen Schuldspruch und Strafmaß Rechtsmittel einzulegen, wurde ihnen verwehrt.

• Ich möchte betonen, dass Amnesty International das Recht und die Pflicht eines Staates anerkennt, Personen, denen Straftaten im Zusammenhang mit der Produktion und dem Handel mit illegalen Drogen strafrechtlich zu verfolgen, aber Drogendelikte gehören nicht zu den "schwersten Verbrechen" auf die die Todesstrafe nach dem Völkerrecht beschränkt ist. Die Todesstrafe darf zudem nie eine zwingend vorgeschriebene Strafe sein.

[APPELLE AN]

RELIGIONSFÜHRER
Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader
Islamic Republic Street – End of Shahid Keshvar Doust Street, Tehran, IRAN
(korrekte Anrede: Your Excellency / Exzellenz)
E-Mail: info_leader@leader.ir
Twitter: @khamenei_ir (#Iran leader @khamenei_ir halt execution of 5 drug traffickers in Hamedan including 3 impoverished mothers)

OBERSTE JUSTIZAUTORITÄT
Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani
[C/o] Public Relations Office, Number 4, 2 Azizi Street
Vali Asr Ave., above Pasteur Street intersection
(korrekte Anrede: Your Excellency / Exzellenz)
E-Mail: bia.judi@yahoo.com (Betreff: FAO Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani)

KOPIEN AN
LEITER DER JUSTIZBEHÖRDEN IN HAMEDAN
Head of Hamedan Judiciary
Sayed Nasratollah Etemad

Dadgostari Koll-e Hamedan,
Bu Ali Ave.,
Hamedan
IRAN
E-Mail: rayaneh_dad@yahoo.com

BOTSCHAFT DER ISLAMISCHEN REPUBLIK IRAN
S.E. Herrn Alireza Sheikh Attar
Podbielskiallee 65-67, 14195 Berlin
Fax: 030-8435 3535
E-Mail: iran.botschaft@t-online.de oder info@iranbotschaft.de

Bitte schreiben Sie Ihre Appelle möglichst sofort. Schreiben Sie in gutem Persisch, Arabisch, Englisch, Französisch oder auf Deutsch.

[HINTERGRUNDINFORMATIONEN (AUF ENGLISCH)]

Iran has one of the highest rates of drug addiction in the world; in May 2011 the Head of the Law Enforcement Force Esma’il Ahmadi-Moghaddam said that there were probably more than 2 million users of illegal drugs in the country. It is also second only to China in the number of executions carried out each year. In 2010, 170 of the 253 executions acknowledged by the authorities were of individuals convicted of drugs offences. The executions of over 200 other convicted drugs offenders were not acknowledged by the authorities, or were carried out secretly. So far in 2011, over 120 of the 183 executions acknowledged by the authorities and recorded by Amnesty International have been of convicted drugs offenders. Well over 100 others are reported by unofficial sources to have been executed for drugs offences across the country, mainly in Vakilabad Prison, Mashhad.

In October 2010, the Interior Minister stated that the campaign against drug trafficking was being intensified, and the Prosecutor-General stated in the same month that new measures had been taken to speed up the judicial processing of drug-trafficking cases, including by referring all such cases to his office. In December 2010, amendments to the Anti-Narcotics Law extended the scope of the death penalty to include additional categories of illegal drugs (for example, methamphetamine - "crystal meth"), possession of more than specified amounts of which carry a mandatory death sentence. The UN Human Rights Committee has stated that "the automatic and mandatory imposition of the death penalty constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of life, in violation of Article 6(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), in circumstances where the death penalty is imposed without any possibility of taking into account the defendant's personal circumstances or the circumstances of the particular offence".
The Iranian authorities do not provide statistics on the numbers of executions carried out annually, nor information concerning those held on death row, although the number is almost certainly in the thousands. UN bodies have repeatedly called upon member states to make publicly available information on the use of the death penalty. In a 1989 resolution, the UN Economic and Social Council urged member states to publish comprehensive information about the death penalty, including death sentences, executions, and those held on death row, as well as on reversals, commutations and pardons.

Article 6 (2) of the ICCPR, to which Iran is a state party, states that "sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes". UN human rights mechanisms - including the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions and the UN Human Rights Committee - have concluded that the death penalty for drug offences fails to meet the condition of "most serious crime". The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime have likewise expressed grave concerns about the application of the death penalty for drug offences.

Under Article 5(5) of the Law Establishing General and Revolutionary Courts, all drugs offences are tried by Revolutionary Courts, which are presided over by a single judge, even though Article 20 of the Law Establishing General and Revolutionary Courts states that offences carrying the penalty of death should be tried in a Provincial Criminal Court, which has five judges. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has recommended that Revolutionary Courts be abolished.

Under the Anti-Narcotics Law, which was passed by the Expediency Council, a body which does not have legislative powers under the Constitution and was created by the former Leader to resolve disputes between Iran’s parliament and Council of Guardians which vets legislation for conformity to the Constitution and Islamic law, there are 13 offences which are punishable by death. Under Article 32 of this law, those sentenced to death for drugs offences do not have the right to appeal, as their convictions and sentences are merely confirmed by either the President of the Supreme Court or the Prosecutor-General. In practice, it seems that many such death sentences are referred to the Prosecutor-General. This contravenes Article 19 of the Law on Appeals, which states that all death sentences are open to appeal, as well as Article 14 (5) of the ICCPR which states that "[e]veryone convicted of a crime shall have the right to his conviction and sentence being reviewed by a higher tribunal according to law".

PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY

• Call on the Iranian authorities to immediately commute the death sentences of the three women and two men;

• Express concern that they did not receive a fair trial, as they were denied access to a lawyer before their trial and were not granted to the right to appeal against their conviction and sentence;

• Recognizing that the authorities have a duty to prosecute individuals for offences connected to the production and supply of illegal drugs, but pointing out that drugs offences do not meet the threshold of "the most serious crimes" to which the death penalty must be restricted under international law and that execution should not be a mandatory sentence.