Iran on Tuesday executed several prisoners held on "terror" charges despite claims that they had been subjected to forced confessions and did not have a fair trial, The Guardian reported.
The prisoners - whose numbers have been estimated between 10 and 28 - were Sunni Muslims, a minority in Iran. Iran has defended the executions, saying the prisoners were "takfiris," a word used to call other Muslims apostates.
Media reports said that the prisoners were executed on Tuesday at Rajai-Shahr prison in Karaj, about eight miles west of Tehran.
“Many if not all of these prisoners were subjected to unfair trials and sentenced to death based on confessions extracted under torture,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights, which monitors Iran's use of the death penalty.
Among those executed was 28-year-old Shahram Ahmadi, a Kurdish prisoner accused of belonging to a Sunni militant group. According to Amnesty International, Ahmadi was sentenced to death in a trial that lasted only a few minutes.
One of Ahmadi's family members told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran they were called on Tuesday morning to visit him for the last time. “We got on the road, but they called us on our way and told us not to go to prison, and to go to the morgue in Kahrizak instead,” the family member said. “We realized he must have been executed. They called again to say that we should go directly to Behesht-e Zahra cemetery. They had executed him before we arrived. We were only able to get the body.”
Iran executed at least 977 people in 2015, more than any country apart from China.
