Who Will Be the Next Victim of the Iranian Regime’s Execution Machine?

In the last days of October 2013 my Persian2English team members and I discussed political prisoners in Iran who we suspected the regime may choose to execute next. We had read a report from an Iranian opposition group in exile (PMOI) warning about the possibility of mass executions to be carried out by Iranian authorities in Ghezel Hesar Prison (in Karaj). We reminded ourselves of the possibility that authorities could transfer prisoners to another prison for execution in secret, without any prior notice or warning. We feared most for the Ahwazi Arab activists on death row and Zanyar and Loghman Moradi.

One team member to another: Remember when we focused on Habib Latifi then they killed Ali Saremi?

A few days prior to this discussion the Iranian authorities had carried out political executions by hanging to death more than a dozen prisoners belonging to Iran’s ethnic minority groups. A couple of their victims were Habibollah Golparipour and Reza Esmaili.

In Iran there is no telling when a prisoner on death row may be killed or how long a prisoner will be incarcerated for without charge, because the actions of authorities are arbitrary and disregard any type of bureaucratic structure and judicial process.

A possible solution to decrease the execution of political prisoners in Iran is to publish more details about the regime’s systematic crimes against Iranian citizens, including the political prisoners (especially the ones on death row).

It is important to untangle the web of confusion that the Iranian authorities create around most judicial cases. Authorities are notorious for playing manipulating political games with Iranians and the international community and throwing psychological curve balls.