AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA
PRESS RELEASE

November 14, 2007

Amnesty International Condemns the Confirmation of the Death Sentence Against Iranian Kurdish Journalist Adnan Hassanpour

(Washington, DC)--Amnesty International USA's Iran country specialist Elise Auerbach released the following statement in response to a recent confirmation of Iranian Kurdish journalist Adnan Hassanpour's death sentence in the midst of a widespread and harsh crackdown on Iranians engaging in dissent or criticism of the government:

"It appears that Iranian authorities are using the courts to silence Hassanpour for his legitimate journalistic activities and advocacy on behalf of Iranian Kurdish cultural rights," said Auerbach. "The charge on which Hassanpour was convicted and sentenced to death--moharebeh ba Khoda or 'enmity against God'--is vague, and was prosecuted through judicial proceedings not on par with international standards for fair trials."

"Amnesty International urges Iranian authorities to commute Hassanpour's death sentence and make public all details of the charges and evidence against him."

Background:

Hassanpour was reportedly accused of espionage for allegedly revealing the location of military sites and establishing contacts with the United States government through statements made to Voice of America and Radio Farda and articles he published in the weekly journal Aso which the Iranian authorities closed down in August 2005. The Mehr News Agency, which is closely linked to the Iranian government, also alleged that Hassanpour had been in contact with Kurdish opposition groups.

Contact: Laura Spann at (202)-544-0200x232

Iran: Adnan Hassanpour death sentence upheld - English Pen

Published: November 14, 2007

English PEN is deeply alarmed by reports that the death sentence handed down to Iranian Kurdish journalist, writer and human rights activist Adnan Hassanpour has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

Hassanpour was convicted of being a mohareb ('enemy of God') and 'acting against national security' for expressing his views on Kurdish issues and he was sentenced to death on 16 July 2007. According to information received by PEN, his sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court on 22 October 2007 although his lawyers were not notified until 5 November 2007.

Saleh Nikbakht, one of his lawyers, told Reporters Without Borders that Hassanpour had been found guilty of 'espionage' because he had allegedly 'revealed the location of military sites and established contacts with the US foreign affairs ministry'. Nikbakht added that: 'This sentence is not only contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international conventions ratified by Iran, but it also contrary to Islamic law and the laws of the Islamic Republic.' According to Reporters Without Borders, Iran has executed more than 300 people since the start of the year. Hassanpour now plans to appeal the sentence, a process which is expected to take considerable time.

English PEN considers Hassanpour to be detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to free expression, and calls for his immediate and unconditional release in accordance with Article 19 of the United Nations International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a signatory.

Hassanpour's cousin, environmentalist Abdolwahed (known as Hiwa) Butimar who worked with Hassanpour for the Kurdish-Persian weekly journal Aso (Horizon), had also been sentenced to death on the same charges. The court quashed his conviction on the grounds of procedural irregularity and his case was sent back to a revolutionary court for re-examination.

English PEN is deeply concerned about an apparent pattern of repression against journalists and human rights activists in Iranian Kurdistan, which has been ongoing since unrest broke out in the Kurdish areas of Iran in July 2005. Several other Iranian-Kurdish journalists are currently detained, including Kaveh Javanmard, Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand and Ejlal Qavami. In the same week that Hassanpour's sentence was upheld, freelancer Yaghoub Salaki Nia was detained without charge at Evin prison in Tehran.

For further information on Adnan Hassanpour's case please click here

To sign the Reporters Without Borders online petition for Adnan Hassanpour and Abdolwahed Butimar please click here

Please send appeals:

• Protesting the death sentence handed down to journalist Adnan Hassanpour, and calling for his release.

• Expressing concerns at reports that he has been ill treated in detention, and seeking reassurances from the Iranian authorities that Adnan Hassanpour's wellbeing is guaranteed.

• Expressing concern about an apparent crackdown on Iranian-Kurdish journalists and writers, and calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all Iranian-Kurdish journalists and writers detained solely for the peaceful expression of their views.

Appeals to:

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei,
The Office of the Supreme Leader
Shoahada Street, Qom
Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info@leader.ir or istiftaa@wilayah.org
Salutation: Your Excellency

His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Ministry of Justice, Park-e Shahr,
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: via Judiciary website: Iranjudiciary.org/feedback_en.html
Salutation: Your Excellency

Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie
Ministry of Intelligence,
Second Negarestan Street,
Pasdaran Avenue,
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran.
Email: iranprobe@iranprobe.com
Salutation: Dear Minister

You may also send copies to:

His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency,
Palestine Avenue,
Azerbaijan Intersection,
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: Via Foreign Ministry: 98 21 6 674 790
(mark: "Please forward to H.E. President Ahmadinejad")
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
via website: www.president.ir/email

It may be most effective to forward all the above appeals care of the Iranian representative in London:

His Excellency Mr Rasoul Movahedian
Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran
16 Prince's Gate
London SW7 1PT
Fax: 0207 589 4440

decision upholding death sentence for Kurdish journalist should be “taken seriously”

Supreme court decision upholding death sentence for Kurdish journalist should be “taken seriously”

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the supreme court’s decision to uphold the death sentence for Kurdish-Iranian journalist Adnan Hassanpour for “spying.” The ruling was issued on 22 October but was not revealed until this week.

The court quashed the conviction of another journalist convicted in the same case, Abdolvahed “Hiva” Botimar, on the grounds of procedural irregularity. Botimar had also been under sentence of death.

“We have been waiting for than six months for the supreme court to decide whether to reopen the case against Iranian-Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi’s alleged murderers, but it took the court only a few weeks to uphold Hassanpour’s death sentence, so the judicial system clearly continues to have a pro-government bias,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“We appeal to the international community to take every possible action to get this journalist released,” the press freedom organisation added. “This sentence should be taken very seriously as Iran has already executed more than 300 people since the start of the year.”

Saleh Nikbakht, one of the lawyers representing the two journalists, was notified on 5 November of the court’s decision although he was not given the details of the ruling. He said Hassanpour had been found guilty of “espionage” because he had allegedly “revealed the location of military sites and established contacts with the US foreign affairs ministry.”

He added that the court overturned Botimar’s conviction on the grounds of a “procedural irregularity,” and sent his case back to the same revolutionary court in Marivan (in the Kurdish northwest of Iran) that convicted him and Hassanpour on 16 July on charges of spying, “subversive activity against national security” and “separatist propaganda.”

Nikbakht told Reporters Without Borders: “This sentence is not only contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international conventions ratified by Iran, but it also contrary to Islamic law and the laws of the Islamic Republic.”

Hassanpour, 27, and Botimar, 29, used to work for the weekly Asou, covering the sensitive Kurdish issue, until the newspaper was banned by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in August 2005. Hassanpour also worked for foreign news media including Voice of America and Radio Farda.

An ardent advocate of Kurdish cultural rights, Hassanpour was arrested outside his home on 25 January and was taken to Mahabad, where he was not allowed to receive visits from his family or his lawyer. Botimar, an active member of the environmental NGO Sabzchia, was arrested on 25 December. For the past several months, Hassanpour and Botimar have been held in Sanandaj prison, where their lawyers have not been allowed to meet with them in private in order to inform them of the supreme court’s decision.

Sign the petition on behalf of Adnan Hassanpour and Abdolvahed “Hiva” Botimar

President Ahmadinejad Delivers Remarks to the National Press Club - washingtonpost.com

MODERATOR: Two of the journalists that have been arrested in Iran have been sentenced to death simply for doing their jobs

President Ahmadinejad: This news is fundamentally wrong


I think the people who give this information should seek what is the truth and, sort of, disseminate what's correct.

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): So I invite everyone present in this meeting to come and visit Iran for themselves, to come freely and visit the country all over, to speak with the people there. Then their point of view will change.

MODERATOR: Two of the journalists that have been arrested in Iran have been sentenced to death simply for doing their jobs.

Mr. President, can you give us your word that you will do everything in your power to keep this sentence from being carried out?

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): This news is fundamentally wrong. This is incorrect. This is not correct at all about Iran, what's happening. What journalist has been sentenced to death?

I'm sorry that some press here disseminates what's untrue. Why should we insist on propagating what's untrue? This moves away from the...

MODERATOR: This report comes from Reporters Without Borders.

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Well, this is incorrect.

Who are these people? Can you let me know who they are, so that at least I can be aware of who they are, too?

MODERATOR: I will certainly do that.

Moving on, Iranian women are...

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I would be certainly grateful. That would be very helpful to me.

MODERATOR: OK, I have just been handed a report from Reporters Without Borders, and it names the names Adnan Hassanpour and -- forgive me, this is a little difficult -- Abdolvahed "Hiva" Botimar.

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Where were they involved in as a journalist and where were they arrested? I don't know people by that name.

(LAUGHTER)

I think that what you received was incorrect information.

You have to, sort of, rectify the information channel. You have -- on a daily basis, over 30 newspapers currently are filled with pages and pages of, basically, criticizing the president and the administration in Iran and even sometimes insulting our policies and what we do.

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): All the journalists and newspapers also receive the loans from the government -- actually, not loans, but grants from the government.

Iranian Journalist's Death Sentence Upheld

Iran's supreme court has upheld the death sentence for 27-year-old Kurdish journalist Adnan Hassanpour -- convicted of "spying" for allegedly having U.S. State Department contacts (that's also called "reporting"). Like his original death sentence, which he had to read about in a newspaper rather than being told, the ruling upholding the death sentence was issued Oct. 22, but Hassanpour's lawyer found out Nov. 5 (sans details).

This is the same journalist that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressing the National Press Club in September, denied existed:

"This news is fundamentally wrong. This is incorrect. This is not correct at all about Iran, what's happening. What journalist has been sentenced to death? I'm sorry that some press here disseminates what's untrue. Why should we insist on propagating what's untrue?"

Hassanpour, who served on the editorial board of the weekly newspaper Aso, staged a hunger strike in protest after his death sentence was originally handed down.

Iran court upholds death sentence on dissident | International | Reuters

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence on a Kurdish dissident journalist convicted of charges including spying, his lawyer said on Friday.

A Revolutionary Court in the western Kurdish city of Marivan sentenced Adnan Hassanpour to death in July.

A colleague, Abdolvahed 'Hiva' Botimar, was sentenced to death at the same time but the Supreme Court referred his case to another court.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a Paris-based media watchdog, has called the death sentences against Hassanpour and Botimar "outrageous and shameful".

"The court has upheld Hassanpour's sentence but has referred Botimar's sentence to a lower court for further reinvestigation," lawyer Saleh Nikbakht told Reuters.

Under Iranian law, all execution orders must be upheld by Iran's Supreme Court.

The judiciary said in July the pair were sentenced to death for mounting "armed struggle against the system", which is among crimes that are considered "Moharebeh", an Islamic term meaning "enmity with God" -- a capital crime.

"Hassanpour's charges are various, including giving classified military information to incompetent figures, having contact with foreigners and espionage," Nikbakht said.

The lawyer said the sentence was "unfair" and he would appeal on behalf of his client.

The two Kurdish journalists wrote for a Kurdish magazine called Aso (Horizons) before it was banned in August 2005, but Iran's judiciary has said their charges were not related to their profession.

RSF said the death sentences "show how little Iran is bothered by international humanitarian law. They also show how determined it is to use every possible means to silence the most outspoken journalists and human rights activists".

Iran's rights record is criticized by the West and rights groups often report that Tehran imprisons political dissidents without due legal process.

Rights groups and Western diplomats say Iranian authorities have increased pressure on dissidents, intellectuals and critical journalists, adding this may in part be a response to mounting international pressure over its atomic program.

The West accuses Iran of covertly trying to build nuclear arms. Iran denies the charge, saying it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Charles Dick