Urgent Action: Ahwazi Arab Men at Risk of Execution (Iran: UA 61.19)

Abdullah Karmollah Chab and Ghassem Abdullah, from Iran’s Ahwazi Arab minority, are facing the death penalty following a grossly unfair trial. “Confessions” they have said were obtained under torture and other ill-treatment, including electric shocks and mock executions, were used to convict them. Their cases are before the Supreme Court.

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Dear Mr Raisi, Abdullah Karmollah Chab and Ghassem Abdullah, Sunni Muslims from Iran’s Ahwazi Arab minority, are on death row following a grossly unfair trial which relied on “confessions” they say were obtained under torture and other ill-treatment. They have been convicted of “enmity against God” (moharebeh) in connection with an armed attack on a Shi’a religious ceremony in Safiabad, Khuzestan province, on 16 October 2015, which left two people dead. They have denied any involvement in the attack. Their lawyers have said there is no evidence linking them to the attack and have identified inconsistencies between the “confessions” that led to their convictions and the accounts of eyewitnesses present at the scene of the crime. They have been given extremely limited access to their families through irregular telephone calls and only one visit. On 9 April 2019, they were transferred to a ministry of intelligence detention center in Hamedan, Hamedan province, where they have been denied access to their families. Both men have said they were subjected to months of torture in detention including by being beaten and given electric shocks. Abdullah Karmollah Chab has said his interrogators hung him upside down for 11 days and subjected him to mock executions, saying they would execute and bury him in an unmarked grave. For three mornings in a row, according to him, they woke him, put a sack over his head and a noose around his neck, and told him that if he “confessed” he would not be executed. He refused, saying he was innocent. On the third day, he said he heard one of the interrogators say: “Just let him go. If he had anything to confess he would have done so by now.” Iran’s Supreme Court later quashed the conviction and sentence due to lack of evidence and flawed investigations and ordered a retrial. On 6 July 2017, they were sentenced to death again. The case is now again before the Supreme Court for appeal. I urge you to quash Abdullah Karmollah Chab and Ghassem Abdullah’s convictions and death sentences; and release them unless there is sufficient evidence, not obtained through torture or other ill-treatment, to charge them with a recognizable criminal offense. In addition, I urge you to grant them a fair trial, without recourse to the death penalty. I urge you to provide them with ongoing access to their families and lawyers. I also urge you to ensure that they are protected from torture and other ill-treatment, and to order an independent and impartial investigation into their torture allegations, bringing to justice anyone responsible. Yours sincerely, ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

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