Three members of Iran´s Kurdish minority are at risk of immediate execution. This may be in reprisal for a number of assassinations and attempted assassinations of officials, which took place during September 2009, in the northwestern province of Kordestan.
Habibollah Latifi, Ehsan (Esma´il) Fattahianand and Sherko Moarefi have all been sentenced to death for “enmity against God” in unconnected cases over the last two years. They are believed to be on death row in a prison in Sanandaj, the provincial capital of Kordestan.
According to the Sanandaj News website (http://senanews.blogfa.com ) a judge in Sanandaj has received orders from the Judiciary, in the Iranian capital Tehran, to carry out the executions of these Kurdish prisoners. The Head of the Judiciary in Sanandaj is reported to have written to the Supreme Leader of Iran for permission to carry out the executions. Kurdish sources have reported that some Kurdish political prisoners have recently been moved from Sanandaj prison to other prisons in Iran. They believe that this may be intended to limit disturbances in the prison should the executions go ahead and is another sign that the executions are imminent.
The Iranian authorities have a history of executing political prisoners when the authorities believe that crimes have been committed by people from the same group. Habibollah Latifi, Ehsan (Esma´il) Fattahian and Sherko Moarefi are believed to have been convicted as a result of their membership and activities on behalf of the Kurdistan Independent Life Party (PJAK), a proscribed armed group. Reports from sources in Iran suggest that they may have been moved into solitary confinement, which is often a prelude to execution.
