The Iranian regime has recently imprisoned dozens of political activists from Ahvaz, subjecting them to long-term sentences. The execution orders for six Arab citizens are also on their agenda. The names of these Arab citizens are as follows:
-Habib Deris, 40 years old, born in 1983. He is from the Kut Sayyed Saleh area in Ahvaz and belongs to the Arab ethnicity.
-Ali Mojdam, 40 years old, born in 1983. He is an Arab citizen from the Kut Sayyed Saleh area in Ahvaz.
-Moein Khanfari, 30 years old, born in 1993. He is from the Kut Sayyed Saleh area in Ahvaz and belongs to the Arab ethnicity.
-Mohammad Reza Moghaddam, 30 years old, born in 1992. He is from the Fallahiye neighborhood in Ahvaz and is an Arab citizen.
-Saleem Mousavi Alboshokeh, 39 years old, born in 1984. He is an Arab citizen from the Kut Sayyed Saleh area.
-Adnan Mousavi Ghobishavi, 26 years old, born in 1996. He is from the Fallahiye neighborhood in Ahvaz and is an Arab citizen.
The sister of Habib Deris, a political prisoner detained in Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz, says, “They have issued the execution sentence for my brother and several other prisoners in Sheiban Prison. Please help and be our voice.”
Allegations leading to conviction:
The Iranian Judiciary has claimed that these six Arab political prisoners have been involved in separate operations that killed two Basij members, one law enforcement officer, and one conscript soldier. These six Arab citizens were arrested in mid-winter of 2019, coinciding with widespread labor protests in Khuzestan province, and later transferred to Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz. Their death sentences have been issued based on unsubstantiated claims by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of their involvement in the murder of an IRGC officer. As a result of severe torture, they were forced to confess to “currency smuggling and transfers through a foreign bank, as well as armed attacks” and having links to the political movement “Al-Nidal.”
Taken from the Iranian judiciary media: “Members of the military branch of this terrorist group, who were executing the orders of their European-based leaders such as Habib Nabgan and Habibollah Cha’ab, were responsible for separate terrorist operations, including the killing of two Basij members named Ali Salehi Majd and Younes Bahr in Abadan, one law enforcement employee named Allahnazar Safari, and one conscript soldier named Mohammadreza Rafiee-Nasab in Bandar Imam Khomeini. “
Court Verdict:
On the morning of Monday, March 6, 2023, the Iranian Judiciary’s Mizan news agency announced that the six Arab political prisoners from Ahvaz had been condemned to death. According to the report, the Revolutionary Court of Ahvaz condemned to death Ali Mojdam, Mohammadreza Moghaddam, Moein Khanfari, Habib Deris, Adnan Ghobishavi, and Salem Mousavi, who were arrested in Ahvaz and surrounding cities by the Intelligence Department in 2017 and 2018, on charges of membership in the “Arab Struggle Movement” and “the murder of two Basij members, one law enforcement personnel, and one soldier.”
“The six prisoners have been sentenced to death on charges such as waging war on God, rebellion against the state, and corruption on earth.” This verdict is not final and can be appealed at the Supreme Court.
Coerced Confessions:
During the trial and deciding on the verdicts for the six Iranian Arab citizens in Ahvaz, the Revolutionary Court of Ahvaz relied on coerced confessions extracted through torture from these prisoners to convict and sentence them to death.
Habib Deris has endured inhumane physical and psychological torture during his detention. A former political prisoner has quoted him regarding the torture: “While his hands and feet were bound, interrogators suspended him from the ceiling and repeatedly immersed his head in water, and covered his face with wet towels, pushing him to the brink of suffocation.”
The prisoner added, “Habib said, ‘These tortures were beyond the ones performed with cables and green pipes. They would beat me so relentlessly with cables and green pipes that my body was wounded and bleeding, and my skin was peeled.’” The Revolutionary Guards forces also abducted Habib’s wife and child to torture him further. These forms of physical and psychological torture force political prisoners into coerced confessions and accepting false and severe charges.
Ali Mojdam, another defendant in this case, has been tortured by the Revolutionary Guards, including electric shocks applied to his ears. With his eyes blindfolded, they placed his hand on a device’s screen and forced him to touch it with his fingers. When he made contact, an electric shock was administered to his body. During the interrogation of Ali Mojdam, the Revolutionary Guards also arrested his wife and young child for compelling him to “confess” to whatever the interrogators wanted in front of the camera.
Even before Ali Mojdam’s trial, the Iranian regime engaged in a propaganda campaign by broadcasting his “coerced confessions,” which were recorded under torture and following the arrest of his wife and child by the Revolutionary Guards.
This former political prisoner states that most of the detainees in this case, similar to Habib Deris and Ali Mojdam, have been subjected to brutal torture by the Revolutionary Guards.
The current situation:
Since Saturday, May 6, 2023, the six death-row political activists have been transferred to Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz for execution. Detailed information about their fate has been unavailable for a long time, and recently, it has been announced that the case of these six individuals is at the stage of final verdict.
The Iran HRM condemns the threat of imminent execution faced by the six Arab citizens sentenced to death in Sheiban Prison, Ahvaz, the use of death sentences as a punishment for protesters, and the absence of fair trials to address their charges.
Postscript:
The Iranian Judiciary, just one day after transferring these six prisoners to solitary cells in Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz, executed Habib Asyoud (Habib Farajollah Cha’ab), an Iranian-Swedish citizen and former leader of the “Al-Nidal Movement.” He was abducted from Turkey by security forces in 2020
