UN calls on Iran to stop female activist’s execution

UN experts have called on Iran to stop the execution of Zahra Tabari, who is a 67-year-old electrical engineer and women’s rights activist, the BBC reported on December 23rd.

Tabari was arrested in April during a warrantless raid on her home and was held in solitary confinement, according to the UN experts. In October, a Revolutionary Court in Rasht convicted her of “armed rebellion” following a video-link trial lasting under 10 minutes. The sentence was purportedly based on a piece of cloth bearing the slogan “Woman, Resistance, Freedom” and an unpublished audio message.

Her family said she was accused of having links to the banned opposition group People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI). According to the UN experts, she was pressured to confess to armed activity and membership to an opposition group.

They said executing Tabari after an unfair trial would be unlawful under international law and added that classifying women’s rights activism as armed rebellion amounts to gender discrimination. Iranian authorities have not commented on the case.

Over 400 influential women, including a number of Nobel laureates, former presidents and former prime ministers, signed a public appeal for Tabari’s immediate release on December 23rd.

The public appeal was organised by Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Massacre in Iran, a UK-based group representing families of political prisoners who had been executed in Iran. The appeal’s statement noted that Iran executes more women per capita than any other country and warned that women’s activism is increasingly criminalised.

The UN experts said at least 51 other people in Iran face the death penalty on national security charges, including armed rebellion, “enmity against God”, “corruption on Earth”, and espionage.

Kurdish rights activist and social worker Pakhshan Azizi is also facing execution in Iran on the same charge as Tabari. UN experts have said her sentencing appears to be linked to her work as a social worker, such as her support for refugees in Iraq and Syria.

Women’s rights activist Hasti Amiri was sentenced to three years in prison by a Tehran court after protesting the death sentence of Azizi by holding her photo in public.

Iranian human rights activist and Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi has reportedly received death threats from Iranian agents.

Tabari’s case reflects “a pattern of serious violations of international human rights law”, UN experts said.

Iran Human Rights (IHR) stated that Iran executed at least 1,426 people, including 41 women, in the first 11 months of this year, which is a 70% increase on the same period in 2024. Nearly half of the executions as of the end of November were down to drug-related crimes and 53 were down to national security cases, according to the Norway-based group.

UN experts have pointed out that international law limits the death penalty to the most extreme crimes, meaning intentional killing.

BBC, Maghrebi.org