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 About
Age — Nationality Iran Religion Atheist Civil status Single Education high school diploma Occupation university student Rank/Position — Affiliation revolutionary committees
Case Date of execution September 29, 1982 Location Iran Mode of execution unspecified execution method Charges Unknown charge About this Case
The information about Ms. Nastaran Akhlaqi has been sent to Omid through an electronic form by one of her cellmates who was in prison with her in 1981. Ms. Akhlaqi is also one of the 430 individuals whose name appears on the list of “Martyrs of the Peykar Organization for the Liberation of the Working Class” published on the website of Peykar Andeesheh. This list contains the names of those members of the Organization who died after the Revolution of 1979. More than 400 of the individuals on this list have been executed. This execution was also announced in the addendum of the Mojahed magazine, No. 261, published by the Mojahedin Khalgh Organization on September 6, 1985. The list includes 12,028 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. Akhlaqi was a student and sympathizer of the Peykar Organization. She had a pale face, curly hair, and green eyes. Her father, who was a supporter of the Islamic Republic, reported her to the authorities. She told her cellmates, after a visitation by her family sometime after her arrest, that her father never expected his daughter to be condemned to death. He had rather thought that reporting her to the authorities would guide her in the right path and save her.
Ayatollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic religious leader, had declared spying among neighbors and relatives to be a personal duty. In a speech on July 2, 1981, he stated: “Today, it is the obligation of the nation to pay attention and identify these saboteurs and report them to committees and courts and any other nearby place… Today, each of you should be a member of the Intelligence Ministry. Everyone of us is obligated to report these saboteurs [to the authorities] when we identify them. We have to try to identify them and report them, so that the police and military forces can hand them over to the court in order for these individuals to be prosecuted.”
The Peykar Organization for the Liberation of the Working Class was founded by a number of dissident members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization who had converted to Marxism-Leninism. Peykar was also joined by a number of political organizations, known as Khat-e Se (Third line). The founding tenets of Peykar included the rejection of guerrilla struggle and a strong stand against the pro-Soviet policies of the Iranian Tudeh Party. Peykar viewed the Soviet Union as a "Social imperialist" state, believed that China had deviated from the Marxist-Leninist principles, and radically opposed all factions of the Islamic regime of Iran. The brutal repression of dissidents by the Iranian government and splits within Peykar in 1981 and 1982 effectively dismantled the Organization and scattered its supporters. By the mid-1980s, Peykar was no longer in existence.
Arrest and detention
Ms. Akhalqi was arrested in the summer of 1981, and according to her cellmate, she was tortured. Initially, her role in the Peykar organization was not disclosed to her interrogators.
Ms. Akhlaqi spent some time in the medical unit of Evin Prison. In mid-November 1981, along with others cellmates of the medical unit, she was transferred to Unit 240, Room number 6, which was assigned to leftist prisoners. After her role and activism in the Peykar Organization was disclosed to the authorities, once again she was taken for interrogation and tortured and her feet were flogged. Her cellmate saw the wounds on her feet in the corridor leading to interrogation rooms. After that she was transferred to another unit.
No specific information is available regarding Ms. Akhlaqi’s visitation with her family. Based on the testimony of individuals in Evin, during this period, after June 20, 1981, no visitation was allowed for political prisoners. Visitations resumed in March of 1982. The dates of upcoming visitations were announced in newspapers. Visitors were behind a glass window. It was impossible to speak openly and freely and one had to use gestures and allusions. After about six months, telephones were installed in the cabins and visitations were allowed once a month. Conversations during visitations were monitored by prison authorities through the telephones. Prisoners, whose interrogations were not completed, were not allowed any visitation.
Trial
No information is available on the defendant’s trial.
Charges
No information is available on the charges against Ms. Akhlaqi.
Evidence of guilt
The report of this execution does not contain information regarding the evidence provided against the defendant.
Defense
No information is available on her defense.
Judgment
The Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal condemned Ms. Nastaran Akhlaqi to death. She was executed on September 29, 1982.
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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 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 freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of one’s interests.
UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 22.1.
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. 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.
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