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 About
Age 20 Nationality Iran Religion Non-Believer Civil status Single Education high school diploma Occupation university student Rank/Position — Institution educational establishment Institution revolutionary leftist
Case Date of execution June 21, 1981 Location Evin Prison, Tehran, Iran Mode of execution shooting Charges Non-marital sex; Plotting to overthrow the Islamic Republic; Sympathizing with anti-regime guerilla groups About this Case
The news of Ms. Behnush Azarian’s execution, and 22 others, comes from the Kayhan daily on June 22, 1981 that quotes the Islamic Republic’s Public Prosecutor’s Central Office.
Furthermore, Ms. Azarian is one of the 1533 executed prisoners listed by the Association of Iranian Women of Köln (Germany). The list published in 1997 is entitled: "A partial list of names of women executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Moreover, 2 electronic forms (e-form) and e-mails were sent to Omid by persons familiar with her case. According to the available information, Ms. Azarian was born in Abadan (Khuzestan province) and resided in Tehran. She was a member of the Fadaiyan Khalq Organization (minority) and was taught guerrilla warfare. At the beginning of the 1979 Revolution, her father sent to the United States to join her siblings who were students there, but she returned to Iran after a few months stating that she could not bear to be away from events in Iran. She studied mechanical engineering. Ms. Azarian was reportedly 6 months pregnant at the time of her execution
This execution was also reported in an addendum to the Mojahed magazine (No 261), published by Mojahedin Khalq Organization in 1985. The list includes 12028 individuals, affiliated with various opposition groups, who were executed or killed during clashes with the Islamic Republic security forces from June 1981 to the publication date of the magazine.
Ms. Azarian, a member of the Fadaiyan Khalq Organization (minority), a secular Marxist-Leninist revolutionary organization opposed to the Islamic Republic, was executed one day after the June 20, 1981 demonstration. The demonstration of June 20, 1981, took place in protest against the parliament's impeachment of President Banisadr and the Islamic Republic's systematic policy of excluding the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) from the country's political scene, the refusal of Ayatollah Khomeini to meet with MKO leaders, and his insistence for them to disarm. The MKO, a Marxist Islamist revolutionary organization, had until then supported the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini and agreed to function within the framework of the new political system. On June 20th, the Organization officially changed its policy and tried to overthrow the regime by organizing mass demonstrations, in which some of the demonstrators were armed, all over the country. These protests, which were severely suppressed and resulted in the killing of dozens of demonstrators, were followed by a wave of mass arrests and executions by the Revolutionary Guards and paramilitary forces that targeted not only the MKO, but all other opposition groups. The massive repression, unprecedented in the history of the Islamic Republic, legitimized as official government policy the months-old state harassment and suppression of dissidents and resulted in the banning of all forms of independent political dissent.
Arrest and detention
Ms. Azarian was arrested along with several other members of the Fadaiyan Khalq Organization (minority), including her boyfriend and one of the leaders of the organization, in Tehran in a team house where she lived, in the winter of 1980. She was imprisoned at the Evin Prison and was not allowed visitation with her family (e-form).
While in detention, Ms. Azarian was reportedly seen by her family and friends on state television, where she was brought to confess and denounce her association with the Fedayan Organization. (e-form)
International human rights organizations have repeatedly condemned the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for its systematic use of severe torture and solitary confinement to obtain confessions from detainees and have questioned the authenticity of confessions obtained under duress. In the case of political detainees, these confessions are, at times, televised. The National Television broadcasts confessions during which prisoners plead guilty to vague and false charges, repent and renounce their political beliefs, and/or implicate others. Human rights organizations have also pointed to the pattern of retracted confessions by those prisoners who are freed.
Trial
According to the Kayhan daily report, Ms. Azarian, along with 7 others, was tried by the Islamic Republic’s Central Court in the afternoon of June 21, 1981. The trial concluded the same evening.
The defendant's family did not get a chance to provide her with an attorney. It is mentioned on one of the electronic forms that in a letter Ms. Azarian wrote that she and the others were tried, but were not allowed to speak during their trials.
Charges
Ms. Azarian’s charges were announced by the Islamic Republic’s Public Prosecutor’s Central Office and published in the Kayhan daily. The charges are as follows: “being a corruptor, having a lover, and having sexual relations outside of wedlock.” She and her fiancée were both accused of the same charges. Also the Prosecutor’s communiqué states that they were arrested “in relations with the recent plots by the grouplets against the Islamic Republic regime [referring to the demonstrations organized by the MKO].”
The validity of the criminal charges brought against this defendant cannot be ascertained in the absence of the basic guarantees of a fair trial. International human rights organizations have drawn attention to reports indicating that the Islamic Republic’s authorities have brought trumped-up charges against their political opponents and executed them for drug trafficking, sexual, and other criminal offences. The exact number of people convicted based on trumped-up charges is unknown.
Evidence of guilt
There is no information available on whether evidence was used against the defendant.
Defense
According to the electronic form, Ms. Azarian wrote a letter to her family after her sentencing, informing them about the verdict and that she was not allowed to speak on her behalf during her trial.
Judgment
The verdict on Ms. Azarian’s, and 7 other, case was announced in the same evening as the start of their trial on June 22, 1981. She was found to be a “corruptor on earth” and an “enemy of God” and sentenced to death. Based on the available information, her name and that of her fellow activists were repeatedly announced on the national television where they were declared “apostates” and “enemies of God”. She was executed at Evin Prison, at 9 pm, June 22, 1981.
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Human rights violations in this caseThe legal context
Read about the courts, the judges, and the procedure. The courts
Special courts, known as the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunals, were set up after the February 1979 revolution. Their jurisdiction encompasses a wide array of offences ranging from association with or support of the former regime, promotion of foreign influence, and enmity with the revolution to possession, use or sales of narcotic drugs, murder, and profiteering. In the 1980s, a penal court, presided over by one judge, was created to handle some of the offenses punishable by death, such as theft or adultery. These tribunals’ decisions must be confirmed by a chamber of the Supreme Judicial Council.
The judges
Prosecutors and judges are not necessarily jurists. By 1981, the judiciary was purged of judges trained in law schools. They were replaced by seminary graduates and students, as well as by political appointees (an estimated 2000 by 1989). Since by law judges are only required to have a high school diploma and must be faithful to the Islamic Republic’s tenets, new recruits often have little formal training in the law and are chosen because of their political affiliation.
The procedure
The procedures of these ecclesiastical tribunals fail to meet the minimum guarantees for fair trial as established by international human rights instruments and by sha’ria (the Islamic system of law). In addition to executions ordered by revolutionary tribunals, extra-judicial executions are carried out, targeting dissidents and opposition leaders. In some cases, both inside and outside of Iran, these executions have been traced back to Iranian officials. It is, however, not known if in these particular cases trials are held in absentia.
Sources (Among others): Amnesty International, Law and Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, February 1980; Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights, The Justice System of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1992; E/CN.4/1989/26 p.14; UNCHR, Resolution 1984/54 , Abolition of Torture - Iran - 1; 28 November 1984; Report on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Special Representative of the Commission, Mr. Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, 28 January 1987. Amnesty International, A SHOCKED WORLD WATCHES IN DISBELIEF, VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS, 1987-1990. Memoirs of Ayatollah Khalkhali, religious judge and former head of revolutionary tribunals (2001), and Ayatollah Montazeri, dismissed successor to Ayatollah Khomeini (2001). UNCH, E/CN.4/1994/50, Final report on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran prepared by the Special Representative of the Commission on Human Rights, Mr. Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, pursuant to Commission resolution 1993/62 of 10 March 1993 and Economic and Social Council decision 1993/273. E/CN.4/1994/50, 2 February 1994.
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 close... Detentions, interrogations, and trials: 1981-1988
Read about the conditions in which individuals were detained, tried and sentenced. Pre-trial detentions
The accused were held, sometimes without being charged, for months or years in overcrowded prisons. During their detention, prisoners of conscience, and in particular supporters of political opposition groups or members of religious or ethnic minorities, were routinely subject to physical and psychological torture. Interrogators used torture, authorized by the post-revolutionary law of Ta’zir (Discretionary Punishment Law), to obtain confessions of guilt or to induce repentance. The line between trial and interrogation was often blurred by the fact that the same individual would function as prosecutor, interrogator and judge.
Trials
Executed detainees may or may not have been tried formally. Prisoners of conscience were often tried through a summary process that might have lasted only a few minutes. When disclosed, charges facing the defendants were often vague or based on coerced confessions. Defendants had no access to attorneys, and they might not have been allowed to defend themselves.
Appeal processes
Convicts could not appeal their sentence and were often executed shortly after their conviction. Their execution was not necessarily announced.
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close... Based on the available information, the following human rights have been violated in this case:
The right to liberty and security of the person. The right not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 9.1. The right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation.
UDHR, Article 12, ICCPR, Article 17.1. The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the right to change and manifest one’s religion or belief.
UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 18.1, ICCPR, Article 18.2; Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Article 1 and Article 6.
In its general comment 22 (48) of 20 July 1993, the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee observed that the freedom to "have or to adopt" a religion or belief necessarily entailed the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one's current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views, as well as the right to retain one's religion or belief. Article 18, paragraph 2, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert. The right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.
UDHR, Article 19; ICCPR, Article 19.1 and ICCPR, Article 19.2.
The right to due process
The right to be presumed innocent until found guilty by a competent and impartial tribunal in accordance with law.
ICCPR, Article 14.1 and Article 14.2. Pre-trial detention rights
The right to know promptly and in detail the nature and cause of the charges against one. UDHR, Article 9(2); ICCPR, Article 9.2 and Article 14.3.a The right to counsel of one’s own choosing or the right to legal aid. The right to communicate with one’s attorney in confidence
ICCPR, Article 14.3.b and Article 14.3.d; Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, Article 1, Article 2, Article 5, Article 6, and Article 8. The right to adequate time and facilities for the preparation of the defense case. ICCPR, Article 14.3.b.
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The right not to be compelled to testify against oneself or to confess to guilt.
ICCPR, Article 14.3.g.>
The right not to be subjected to torture and to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
ICCPR, Article 7; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Article 1 and Article 2.
Trial rights
The right to a fair and public trial without undue delay.
ICCPR, Article 14.1, Article 14.3.c.
The right to defense through an attorney or legal aid. The right to examine, or have examined, the witnesses against one, and the right to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on one’s behalf under the same conditions as prosecution witnesses.
ICCPR, Article 14.3.d and Article 14.3.e. The right to have the decision rendered in public.
ICCPR, Article 14.1.
Judgment rights
Capital punishment
The inherent right to life, of which no one shall be arbitrarily deprived.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 6.1; Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, Article 1.1, Article 1.2. The right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.
ICCPR, Article 7; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Article 1 and Article 2. The right of a person not to be subjected to the capital punishment for an offence committed before the age of eighteen. The right not to be subjected to the capital punishment while pregnant.
ICCPR, Article 6.5; Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 37.a.
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