Iran executes Kurdish ‘political prisoner’: rights groups

PARIS: Iran on Friday hanged a Kurdish man viewed as a political prisoner by activists, rights groups said, amplifying alarm over the soaring number of executions in the country this year.

Mohayyedin Ebrahimi, 43, was hanged at dawn at Urmia prison in northwestern Iran, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Hengaw rights groups said in separate statements. Five other men were also executed on drug-related charges at Urmia on Friday morning, the groups added.

Ebrahimi was arrested in 2017 during a clash where he was shot in the leg, and was sentenced to death the following year. He was accused of involvement in the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, a banned group which has waged an armed struggle for self-determination of Iran´s Kurdish-populated region, and indicted on the capital charge of armed rebellion.