Iran executes five 'political prisoners': rights groups

Iran on Wednesday executed five men accused of belonging to banned Sunni Muslim groups, rights groups said, describing them as "political prisoners" who had been subjected to an unjust trial.

The five were hanged in Vakilabad prison in the eastern city of Mashhad without their families being told in advance or allowed the chance for a final visit, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) said in a statement.

"These prisoners were subjected to torture and sentenced to death following an unfair trial," said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, who called the five "political prisoners".

Four of the men were members of Iran's Sunni Muslim community, which is a minority group in the Islamic Republic, where Shiite Islam predominates. One of those hanged was a Shiite.

All had been arrested in 2015 in a case dating back a decade and convicted of "baghi", the capital charge of "rebellion" under Iran's Islamic law, for membership in outlawed Sunni Muslim groups.

Three of their co-defendants in the same case were also executed in December 2020.

"Five more men are dead, with many more being lined up for the gallows behind them, after sham trials that lacked any semblance of legality or fairness," said Behnam Daraeizadeh, senior researcher and legal expert at the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said the families only found out about the executions through phone calls and were still waiting outside the prison to receive the bodies of their loved ones.

The men had been convicted of belonging to Salafist groups, including the "National Solidarity Front of Iranian Sunnis", it said.

Iran, the world's most prolific user of the death penalty after China, has already executed 245 people this year, according to IHR, which has warned of a troubling surge in executions.

Human rights groups accuse the authorities of using the death penalty to sow fear among the public, particularly after nationwide protests broke out in 2022.

Activists are closely watching the cases of three women activists, Pakhshan Azizi, Sharifeh Mohammadi and Varisheh Morad, who have all been sentenced to death on charges of "baghi" for alleged membership of outlawed Kurdish groups.

Rights groups say the women were never involved in such activities and are, in fact, civil society activists. They warn the women could be executed at any moment after repeated legal appeals were rejected.