April 2, 2011
RAHANA- Last year 191 citizens were sentenced to death based on charges ranging from trading illegal substances, assault, and throwing stones. The Amnesty and Forgiveness Commission under the jurisdiction of Gholamhossein Ansari granted clemency to 59 of these individuals while denying it to the rest. Plans are to carry out the executions by hanging of the remaining 132 prisoners in the next few weeks.
Mohammad Mostafai, spokesperson for Human Rights House of Iran said, “These death row prisoers have a legal right to amnesty and forgiveness. In the city of Isfahan, in order to conceal the numbers of those executed every month, prisoners are hung in secret and their corpses delivered to their families. Those convicted to death are not provided with acceptable legal support. None of them had legal council when their interrogations and trials took place. They had to use court appointed legal assistance with major honorariums for their appeals.”
As reported by the Isfahan Judiciary Public Relations Agency, Dr. Gholamreza Ansari presided over sixteen of the Amnesty Commission sessions, overseeing 874 files out of the total 1550 reviewed. He said, “out of the these, 271 received amnesty or reduced sentences, while 502 were denied amnesty due to lack of evidence against their crimes. Also 35 people were granted an exemption from payment when their files were transferred to the Amnesty Commission.”
The Director of Isfahan’s Amnesty Commission announced the result of their file reviews for 191 citizens convicted to death saying, “Of these numbers, 59 individuals received commuted sentences while 132 individuals who were not qualified were denied amnesty.”
This commission reviews files of prisoners regarding the possibility for amnesty every 15 days.