IRAN: URGENT GLOBAL ACTION NEEDED TO HALT IMMINENT EXECUTION OF KURDISH HUMANITARIAN WORKER

Pakhshan Azizi was detained solely in relation to her peaceful human rights and humanitarian activities, including providing humanitarian support to women and children in northeast Syria who were displaced following attacks by the Islamic State armed group

Responding to reports that Iran’s Supreme Court rejected the request for judicial review of the conviction and death sentence of humanitarian aid worker Pakhshan Azizi, 40, from Iran’s oppressed Kurdish ethnic minority, Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said:

“The international community must immediately urge the Iranian authorities to halt the execution of arbitrarily detained humanitarian aid worker Pakhshan Azizi, who was sentenced to death following a grossly unfair trial before a Revolutionary Court last year.

“Pakhshan Azizi was detained solely in relation to her peaceful human rights and humanitarian activities, including providing humanitarian support to women and children in northeast Syria who were displaced following attacks by the Islamic State armed group. Instead of facing imminent execution she should be immediately and unconditionally released.

The international community must immediately urge the Iranian authorities to halt the execution of arbitrarily detained humanitarian aid worker Pakhshan Azizi, who was sentenced to death following a grossly unfair trial 

Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International

“The Supreme Court’s decision to reject her request for judicial review highlights yet again how the Iranian authorities remain adamantly resolved to use death penalty as a tool of political repression to instil fear among the population. In a media interview one of her lawyers, Amir Raesian, said he was notified of the decision on 5 February, adding that her execution could now be carried out at any moment. He also noted that shocking errors made in the case by the lower court were repeated in the Supreme Court’s verdict.

“The death penalty is abhorrent in all circumstances; but imposing it after a grossly unfair trial before a Revolutionary Court, in which Pakhshan Azizi’s allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, including gender-based violence, have gone uninvestigated, renders its use arbitrary and illustrates yet again the Iranian authorities’ shameless disregard for the right to life. Governments worldwide must speak out loudly now against this injustice to halt Pakhshan Azizi’s execution before it is too late.”

Background

Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran sentenced Pakhshan Azizi to death in July 2024. She was convicted of “armed rebellion against the state” (baghi) solely in relation to her peaceful human rights and humanitarian activities. For instance, between 2014 and 2022 she was involved in providing humanitarian support to women and children displaced following attacks by the Islamic State armed group (IS) and sheltering in camps in northeast Syria and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. In early January 2025, the Supreme Court upheld her conviction and death sentence. Her request for judicial review was subsequently rejected by Branch Nine of the Supreme Court.

On 4 August 2023, Ministry of Intelligence agents arbitrarily arrested Pakhshan Azizi in Tehran and transferred her to section 209 of Tehran’s Evin prison, which is under the control of the Ministry of Intelligence and held her in prolonged solitary confinement for five months without access to a lawyer and her family. According to informed sources, during this time Pakhshan Azizi was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment during interrogations. Agents repeatedly told her that she had no right to live and threatened to execute her. They also subjected her to gender-based violence in order to compel her to make forced “confessions” of having ties to Kurdish opposition groups, which she repeatedly denied. In early December 2023, she was transferred to the women’s ward of Evin prison, where she remains held.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally, in all cases and under any circumstances.