Maryam Nayeb Yazdi

English Translation by the Mohammad Mostafaei blog | Persian  

Editor’s Note: Mohammad Mostafaei, prominent human rights lawyer who was forced to flee Iran, recently gave a speech at the French Bar Association Against Executions for International Day Against the Death Penalty. The following is the English translation of the speech:

OCTOBER 10, 2010- International Day Against the Death Penalty does not belong to a specific case or a person condemned to execution or stoning. The day belongs to all those who were executed in the past and those around the world who are sitting on death row.

I honour the memories of my own teenage clients Behnam Zareh, Delara Darabi, Behnoud Shojaee and others who have unjustly been hanged, only on the basis of the establishment’s vindictiveness and vengefulness.

I want to thank the ECPM and the French Bar Association for helping people who live in countries that take steps against human rights conventions to take the lives of other human beings.

Victor Hugo said, “You insist on the example [of the death penalty]. Why? What does it teach? What do you wish to teach [when you set the example of execution]? Do you teach “thou shall not kill” by killing?”

Those who are pro-capital punishment and those who are against each have their own reasons to accept or reject it and it is a subject worth discussing. There are a lot of speeches and literature on this subject [albeit in Persian]. Apart from the for-and-against arguments and reasonings, man is not the giver of life and thus should not be allowed to take life.

The death penalty is useless and ineffective in preventing crime. It is violent and it does not intimidate. It contradicts the society’s norms and values.

Those who support capital punishment say that it defends society and brings about security. It is necessary to bring about justice and safeguard honour and reason. I agree with the first part. If the subject is looked into deep enough though, it can be concluded that execution is a means to kill in order to remain in power by those who have the power, despots and dictators on one side and those who are unable to meet the internal challenges of society on the other.

Rulers, who in the name of Islam [mis]use the religion to justify [their actions], commit crimes against humanity. Without showing any remorse, they consider stoning a domestic issue and intend to carry out such a barbaric and inhumane punishment. Only Nigeria and the Islamic Republic have not removed such an inhumane punishment form their penal code, and the rulers of the Islamic Republic actively pursue this outrageous punishment.

Based on my own experiences, speaking as someone who has managed to save fifty people from the death penalty, retributions, and stoning, I believe execution is not a punishment fit for human beings.

Execution is a licence to kill for powerful leaders. Execution is an action that makes the act of killing easier and more doable. It reduces the obscenity and ugliness of murder, in particular for those who have the potential to commit crime. Execution is a cruel punishment; a punishment by which the innocent get killed and become victims.

In some countries like the Islamic Republic, political and ideological offenders are also not spared by the powerful rulers and are sentenced to execution without given a fair trial.

As an obvious and proven example, in 1987, within two months, 2,800 to 3,800 people were executed by the rulers of the Islamic Republic. The executions took place as a political tool and vengeful purposes and not based on legal and judicial processes.

Ayatollah Khomeini’s edict in that year was, “Since the ‘hypocrites’ are traitors and do not believe in Islam in any way, and whatever they claim is based on deceit and hypocrisy, and their leaders have confessed to have renegaded from Islam, considering their war with God, they are condemned to execution.” With this general edict, many Iranian citizens, for political and ideological reasons, have been executed and are at imminent risk of execution.

As I mentioned before, executions are used as a tool and are not based on a legal and judicial procedure where evidence is presented and the accused are assumed innocent until proven guilty. For example, a person faces the wrath of the rulers and is accused of having committed a crime. After being arrested, the person is detained and charged with warring against God. Such detainments are illegal, and the accused, without being allowed to have a defense lawyer, is subjected to torture and forced to recant against themselves.

After having extracted such confessions, show trials are formed and the accused is sentenced to execution. Widespread mass executions by the rulers of the Islamic Republic have not attracted much attention by human rights organisations and institutions. [Consequently], the opportunity is made possible for the head of the Islamic Republic’s administration to speak before the United Nations in front of mass media and divert attention from [the regime's] own human rights abuses. Instead, [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] challenges 9/11 events and offends the survivors of this terrible tragedy.

It is necessary for the world to know about the crimes committed by the Islamic Republic’s leaders against thousands of Iranian citizens. The unlawful and non-judicial executions in the last years and months requires the serious attention of human rights organisations.

United Nations human rights reporters, human rights organisations and institutions, countries, and noteworthy political, scientific and cultural figures should pay more attention.

One cannot ignore the execution of 15 and 16 year old teenagers. One cannot ignore the actions by rulers who subject their opponents through the worst interrogations, trials and long prison sentences or executions. One cannot ignore that the lives of human beings is taken in the cruelest way by the punishment of stoning. Do these crimes not deserve looking into and establishing a fact-finding committee?

There have also been executions in the Islamic Republic that have religious prejudicial aspects and are carried out by the edicts issued by religious jurists like the political extra judicial murders committed by Saeed Emami and his team.

In his interrogations, Saeed Emami said, “Since the beginning of the revolution to this day, I have been and remain obedient to the orders of the holy establishment of the Islamic Republic and the Supreme Leader. I have never carried out an order without having the permission of the high-ranking members of the establishment. I have advised the officials whatever I have deemed expedient for the establishment and for Islam. I do not see myself as guilty. The elimination of dissidents has always been dictated to us and what we have done is in accordance with our religious duties. It can not therefore be regarded as murder or a crime.”

There are many people like Saeed Emami in the Islamic Republic. The world witnessed that after a fraudulent election, the blood of numerous Iranian citizens spilled in the streets. Based on my way of thinking, I call the [actions of the Islamic Republic] extra judicial and arbitrary executions.

Another example that took place was in France in 1991. Mr. Vakili Rad stabbed to death a prominent Iranian political figure, Shapour Bakhtiar. For the murder of Shapour Bakhtiar, Vakili Rad served 19 years and five months and was released on April 29, 2010, the same time that Clotilde Reiss was released. Vakili Rad was welcomed by Islamic Republic officials in Tehran’s airport.

I believe human life should be respected at any time and under any conditions and must enjoy immunity, whether by individuals or by states.

In Iran there are several kinds of executions and I do not have enough time to go through all of them and explain them. The execution statistics in regards to murder and narcotics in Iran is more than other crimes, especially murder, even if it is not premeditated. In narcotics too, even if someone carries or sells 30 grams of heroin, he or she is sentenced to execution. Some of the executions like the drug-related ones are not based on jurisprudence and can be made more restricted. There are even cases where crimes committed by offenders are not defined in the penal code so the judge issues the sentence based on Sharia law and jurisprudence alone.

The punishment for apostasy is not mentioned in any of the penal code clauses of the Islamic Republic, yet some judges issue death sentences in such cases. Recently, Gilan’s branch 11 court sentenced Yussef Badkhani to death based on apostasy. In previous years too, someone in Mashhad by the name of Hossein Soodmand was accused of apostasy, sentenced to death, and executed.

It is regrettable that in the week that marked International Day Against the Death Penalty, *three ethnic Iranians were publicly executed in Sanandaj.

I declare that capital punishment for many reasons is wrong and must be eliminated. It would be appropriate for the President of the United States, who won the Nobel Peace prize and talks highly of human rights, to set an example for other countries by removing capital punishment from the penal code of the United States.

- Maryam Nayeb Yazdi

Editor, //persian2english.com/?p=15428