Political Prisoner Ramin Hossein Panahi has been transferred to a quarantined death row cell in Sanandaj Central Prison west of Iran and may be executed on Thursday, according to the prisoner’s lawyer Hossein Ahmadi Niazi.
“Today, Tuesday, May 2, I went to the Supreme Court Secretariat to investigate the latest situation of Ramin Hussein Panahi and I learned that the initial court order, Ramin Hossein Panahi’s death sentence had been upheld and his case is sent to the first branch of the Sanandaj Court,” he said.
Ahead of the scheduled execution on Thursday of Ramin Hossein Panahi Amnesty International issued a statement today reiterating, “Imminent execution of Kurdish man must be halted.”
Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “Ramin Hossein Panahi’s case has been a breathtaking miscarriage of justice from start to finish. After appearing at his trial reportedly bearing torture marks on his body he was convicted in less than an hour.
Amnesty International wrote, “During the investigation period he was denied access to both his lawyer and his family, as well as to any details of the evidence against him. In a complete mockery of the judicial process, intelligence officials also repeatedly pressured him to make a televised ‘confession’ in exchange for the quashing of his death sentence. His refusal to submit to this pressure has seen him languishing in solitary confinement.
“We urge the Iranian authorities not to compound this shocking catalogue of human rights violations by proceeding with what is the ultimate and irreversible denial of human rights. Ramin Hossein Panahi’s death sentence must be quashed now before it’s too late.”
