IRAN. APPEAL FOR SUSPENSION OF EXECUTIONS IN REFORMIST NEWSPAPER

September 30, 2008: the reformist Iranian newspaper Kargozaran published a public appeal asking the chief magistrate to suspend the execution of six Kurdish activists. September 30, 2008: the reformist Iranian newspaper Kargozaran published an appeal from the judicial apparatus asking the chief magistrate to suspend the execution of six Kurdish activists.
Signed by "more than 1,400 political, cultural and social activists", the letter asks Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi to "immediately suspend the executions" of Farzad Kamangar, Fahrad Vakili, Ali Heidarian, Arsalan Oliai, Anvar Hossein Panahi and Habibollah Latifi. The men were condemned to death in the Islamic Republic in recent months.
The latter two accused have appealed their sentences and are awaiting the outcome. All six were sentenced to death for belonging to or supporting PJAK, an armed group affiliated with the Turkish PKK, the Workers Party of Kurdistan.
On September 29, another young man, identified as Homayon Shabestari, was hanged in the western Iranian city of Kermanshah. Shabestari, 21, allegedly committed a crime in 2005 when he was a minor. (Sources: ANSA, NCR-Iran.org, 30/09/2008)