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| Sevil Suleymani |
Recently, the execution of approximately 20 Sunni prisoners in Iran, who were accused of involvement in terrorist activities, and the first-ever release of an audio file considered an important document regarding the mass executions carried out in 1988, have sparked extensive debates between those who support and oppose the death penalty.
According to Suleymani, the stance of different groups in Iran on the death penalty and human rights, in general, is more ideological. "They are only against the death penalty when it is applied to members of their own group," she says.
The activist points out that most of the Sunni prisoners, who are accused of participating in terrorist activities, belong to the Kurdish community, and emphasizes that to determine the truth of these accusations, one must first answer the question: "Can we trust Iranian courts?"
"Two questions arise in relation to the execution of Sunnis. First, leaving aside whether they are Sunni or Kurdish, do we generally agree with the death penalty or not? Second, how much can we trust the judicial system in Iran? When we look at their cases, it is claimed that they were linked to terrorist groups like ISIS or Salafi groups. But how much can we trust the Iranian judicial system to believe these accusations?"
Recently, an audio file containing an important document regarding the mass executions of political opponents carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1988 has also been released. The audio file contains a debate between Ayatollah Montazeri, who was the deputy of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini at the time, and security officials. In this recording, Montazeri protests the execution of thousands of prisoners and calls those who carried out the executions "criminals."
While the activist living in the United States acknowledges the significance of Montazeri's strong opposition to the executions, she highlights that the Ayatollah, who passed away in 2009, was not opposed to the death penalty itself, but rather to the potential damage it could cause to the image of the Islamic Revolution.
Sevil Suleymani emphasizes that, in general, the number of people opposed to the death penalty in Iranian society, including among intellectuals, is small.
Amnesty International, in its report on executions related to drug trafficking in Iran, points out that defendants from ethnic and religious minorities are at the highest risk of execution.
Southern lawyer Musa Barzin, in an interview with Voice of America, discusses the illegalities occurring in Iranian courts that issue death sentences.
Link to the original interview in Turkish on the Azerbaijani section of Voice of America:
Sevil Süleymani: İran cəmiyyətində edam hökmünə zidd olanların sayı azdır