Iranian Kurdish civil activist Pakhshan Azizi was sentenced to death, sparking widespread protests from social media users, female detainees in Evin Prison, and human rights organizations. The protests condemned the Islamic Republic for its brutal retaliation against female activists.
Azizi’s lawyers received the verdict on Tuesday. This marks the second death sentence for a female political prisoner in Iran in recent weeks.
Earlier, Sharifeh Mohammadi, a labor activist held in Lakan Prison in Rasht, was sentenced to death by the city's Islamic Revolutionary Court, also on charges of rebellion.
The Hengaw Human Rights Organization, a Kurdish advocacy group, emphasized that Azizi was sentenced to death while "she has been denied access to a lawyer and family visits for several months, and her legal proceedings have been conducted in a non-transparent and unjust manner."
Hengaw recently released a letter from Azizi, in which she said she had been subjected to repeated torture and hanging during her detention.
"They are exacting revenge on female activists in the most brutal manner," Fatemeh Shahrazad Shams, a women's rights activist, said. "The repeated issuance of death sentences, long-term imprisonments, exiles, and the imposition of suspicious illnesses on female prisoners are ongoing crimes committed by the Islamic Republic against women. We must not remain silent in the face of these brutal injustices."
Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network reported that "Azizi's death sentence coincides with the case of another Kurdish activist, Wrisha Moradi, a member of the East Kurdistan Free Women Society, or KJAR, who is awaiting sentencing on similar charges following her arrest in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province."
Azizi was arrested on August 4, 2023, by the Ministry of Intelligence in Kharazi, Tehran. She was subjected to interrogation and torture at the Intelligence Detention Center before being transferred to Ward 209 of Evin Prison, and later to the women's ward. She was later charged with "rebellion through membership in opposition groups."
Female activists held in Evin Prison showed their anger over the sentence in several gatherings, reports said.
