IRAN. NEW DEATH PENALTY FOR KURDISH JOURNALIST

March 19, 2008: A young Kurdish journalist has been condemned to death in Iran for the second time.
Hiwa Boutimar, a journalist and environmental activist, received the death penalty after a second trial failed to acquit him.
Hiwa, who received the City of Siena-Isf award for freedom of information in Italy in November last year, was condemned to death for the first time last July.
An international campaign which began in Italy and extended throughout Europe forced Iran's Judicial Authority to cancel the first verdict.
Sources close to the journalist's family have told Adnkronos International that the new trial was carried out in the same way as the first trial without legal representation.
The new death penalty issued just after the parliamentary elections in Iran, was not officially communicated to Hiwa, imprisoned in Mariwan, western Iran, or to his family, only to his lawyer verbally. (Sources: AKI, 19/03/2008)