Dispatching 'Enemies' of the Islamic Republic of Iran

"Like Xi Jinping's China, Khomeinist Iran has made a habit of coercive diplomacy and hostage diplomacy -- because it works -- so it's not often immediately clear what the regime's intention is when it abducts a foreigner or a dual citizen on transparently fraudulent charges."

"Such was the case with the Australian British academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, sentenced to ten years in prison on espionage charges in 2018, after attending an academic conference [in Tehran]."

"The pretext for Moore-Gilbert's arrest appears to have been the fact that the year before, she'd married an Israeli Jew. Moore-Gilbert was quietly released last week in exchange for three Iranians imprisoned in Thailand for their part in a bomb plot targeting Israeli diplomats in Bangkok."

Terry Glavin, Author, Journalist, National Post

Ahmadreza Djalali was arrested in 2016 and later convicted of "corruption on earth"   Photo: Center for Human Rights in Iran

Earlier this week emergency medicine specialist Ahmadreza Djalali, a lecturer at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm who holds dual citizenship, Swedish and Iranian, was transferred from the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran to the death row block at Raja'i Shahr solitary-block prison located in a Tehran suburb. He had been arrested in April 2016 on spying charges during a trip to his native Iran for the purpose of attending workshops at the University of Tehran.

That decision by a renowned scientist to leave the safety and security of Sweden for the opportunity to travel to Iran to take part in scientific-medical workshops will most surely cost the distinguished specialist his life. Once the transfer of a convicted felon in Iran to Rajai Shahr prison takes place, the swift solution of capital punishment follows within a day or two.

In a routine of such trumped-up arrests and split-second 'trials', those arrested like Dr.Rjalali are subjected to torture purposing a 'confession'. In Dr. Rjalali's all-too-common case, the confession gained through torture is that he was a spy for Israel. That conjecture was arrived at by the simple enough medium of Iranian authorities arriving at that conclusion when the good doctor refused to become a spy in Europe for the Khomeinist regime.

Yet another judicial-murder ritual ensnaring involuntary 'participants' from the world over eliciting diplomatic protests, press releases, bringing United Nations human rights rapporteurs into action issuing statements of condemnation, all to no avail to a theocratic regime that answers only to the authority of the Koran. Iran is not quite the world's top executioner, that exalted spot goes to China, without taking into account population numbers.

 

There are those, like Mr. Glavin, who is convinced that bearing in mind population comparisons, Tehran may lead the pack in executions. China keeps its data on capital punishment close to its CCP chest but figures released by Amnesty International count 657 executions last year, though Amnesty researchers believe the true number could be ten times more.

 

Authorities in Tehran are known to have given death sentences to a minimum of 251 people last year and for the first nine months of this year, the International Federation for Human Rights added up 190 Iranians sent to the gallows thus far. Their crimes? Death sentences in Iran are meted out for drug trafficking, incest, adultery, homosexuality, murder, rebelliousness, renouncing the Muslim faith, blasphemy, espionage, 'enmity against God', and 'spreading corruption on earth', the last of which is open to interpretation. 

Iran's Ministry of Security and Intelligence has accused Ahmadreza Djalali of 'spreading corruption on earth'. International human rights organizations, along with the UN's Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, 150 Nobel Laureates, and a third of a million petition signers have called for his release. Dr.Djalali, 45, has published 46 scientific papers in academic journals worldwide. The World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine champions Dr.Djalali.

All those pleading for his release, that he be spared death, can recall the international uproar that ensued with the failure to persuade regime prosecutors to lift the death sentences on young regime protesters among thousands imprisoned during the November 2019 upheavals that took place countrywide. Or the international campaign to release Iranian champion wrestler Navid Afkari which failed to rescue him from the gallows after being tortured and producing a forced confession.

Amnesty activists protest in Brussels close to the Iranian embassy on Monday against the death sentence of Swedish-Iranian scientist Ahmadreza Djalali, who was convicted of espionage. Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/EPA

"Ahmadreza Djalali is at imminent risk of execution and only a strong and urgent reaction from the international community can save his life."

Iran Human Rights 

"The judge overseeing the arbitrary killing reportedly said the family would be granted a last-minute visit before his execution. Unconscionable. And unlawful."

"Human lives just pawns in international politics, tit for tat, no end in sight."

UN human rights rapporteur Agnés Callamard 

 

"I spoke to him a week ago and what he said would happen is taking place."

"He will be executed at some point tomorrow, unless someone intervenes, I am not a political person, but all I can ask is that countries that have influence, maybe Austria and the US, will ask Iran to open his door and cancel his sentence."

"I hope the media will help me."

Djalali’s wife, Vida Mehrannia