MEN AT RISK OF FINGER AMPUTATION WITHIN DAYS

Dear Mr. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei,

I am gravely concerned that Hadi Rostami (38), Mehdi Sharfian (42), and Mehdi Shahivand (29) are at grave risk of having their amputation sentences carried out within days using a guillotine device. On March 13, 2025, they were summoned to the Office for the Implementation of Sentences in prison and given a letter from the prosecutor’s office in Urumieh stating that their amputation sentences could be carried out as early as April 11, 2025.

Hadi Rostami, Mehdi Sharfian, and Mehdi Shahivand were arrested in 2017 and convicted of robbery in 2019 after a grossly unfair trial. They were denied access to lawyers during the investigation phase of their case and courts relied on forced “confessions” to convict them. The men have said they were forced to make the “confessions” under torture and retracted them during trial. The authorities dismissed their torture allegations and failed to order investigations into them. According to their court verdict, they are sentenced to “have four fingers on their right hands completely cut off so only the palm of their hands and thumbs are left”. Since their conviction, they have gone on multiple hunger strikes to protest inhumane prison conditions and repeated threats to carry out their amputation.

I urge you to immediately halt plans to carry out the amputation sentences of Hadi Rostami, Mehdi Sharfian and Mehdi Shahivand, quash their convictions and amputation sentences and grant them fair retrials without resorting to corporal punishments. I urge you to protect them from further torture, give them access to any medical care they need and investigate their torture allegations, bringing anyone suspected of responsibility to justice in fair trials. More broadly, I call on you to abolish all forms of corporal punishment in law and practice.

Yours sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]