February 14-2014
. . . hanged at age 32
Two Arab-Iranians sentenced to death almost two years ago for supporting Arab separatism have been executed, according to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC).
The two are Hashem Shaabani, who was known for his poetry, and Hadi Rashedi. Both men had taught high school in the town of Ramshir in Khuzestan province, which has a large Arab minority and an active political movement supporting independence or autonomy for the province.
The executions will likely be seen as a blow to efforts by President Rohani to improve relations with minority groups—especially Arabs, Baluchis and Kurds, all of which support armed opposition groups.
Shaabani and Rashedi were sentenced to death in July 2012 by the Ahvaz Islamic Revolutionary Court for muhareb (“waging war on God”), sowing corruption on earth, propaganda against the Islamic Republic and acting against national security.
But Shaabani denied ever taking violent action against the Islamic Republic. He said he only expressed his complaints against the government with his pen.
Shaabani was the founder of an organization promoting Arabic literature and culture in Iran known as the Dialogue Institute and was popular for his Arabic and Persian poems, Al-Jazeera reported in newscasts carried throughout the Arab world.
It said the 32-year-old often spoke out against the treatment of ethnic Arabs in Khuzestan.
Shaabani was first arrested in February 2011 and a year later appeared on Iran’s state-owned PressTV, where he was seen confessing to “separatist terrorism” and receiving assistance from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhdhafi.
However, in a letter published by the Ahvaz News Agency last year, Shaabani insisted he had “never participated in any armed activity, whatever the motives.”
He wrote: “I started my journey wielding my pen against the tyranny that is trying to enslave and imprison minds and thoughts, colonizing people’s minds before colonizing their lands and destroying people’s thoughts before destroying their region.”
He said he could not have remained silent against “hideous crimes against Ahvazis [as the Arabs of Khuzestan are generally known] perpetrated by the Iranian authorities, particularly arbitrary and unjust executions.”
The father-of-one stated: “I have tried to defend the legitimate right that every people in this world should have, which is the right to live freely with full civil rights. With all these miseries and tragedies, I have never used a weapon, except the pen, to fight these atrocious crimes.”
Shaabani had a master’s degree in political science.
Many news reports in the West said the two men were hanged after their execution decrees were signed by Rohani. However, in the Islamic Republic a president has no say in punishments. Execution orders are handled by the Judiciary. The authority to pardon is in the exclusive hands of the Supreme Leader.
IHRDC said the two men were executed without advance notice to their attorneys or their families, as required by the Islamic Republic. It said the regulatory code governing the conduct of executions specifies that the attorney for the person being executed must be notified at least 48 hours prior to the execution. In addition, the same code states that the person being executed is entitled to have visitors in the prison before his or her execution.
The date of the executions cannot yet be verified, but is believed to have been in late January.
Three other Arabs from Khuzestan—Mohammad Ali Amouri-nejad, Jaber Alboshoka and Mokhtar Alboshoka—were sentenced to death along with Rashedi and Shaabani. In early December, however, their families were notified that their sentences had been commuted to life in prison.