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 About
Age 20 Nationality Iran Religion Islam (Shi'a) Civil status Married Education high school diploma Occupation university student Rank/Position — Institution educational establishment Institution armed group, Islamic revolutionary
Case Date of execution September 24, 1981 Location Tabriz, Iran Mode of execution shooting Charges Counter revolutionary opinion and/or speech; Living in safe houses; Participating in an anti-regime demonstration; Plotting to overthrow the Islamic Republic; Sedition and/ or threat to public security; Sympathizing with anti-regime guerilla groups About this Case
The information about the execution of Ms. Soraya Abolfathi and 34 other individuals was released in a communiqué by the Public Relations Office of the General Public Prosecutor’s Office, published in the Kayhan daily on September 28, 1981.
This execution was also reported in an addendum to the Mojahed magazine (No 261), published by Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) 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. Abolfathi is also 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.
Additional information about Ms. Abolfathi is taken from the MKO website. She was born in Tabriz and was a student at the Tabriz University when she became a MKO sympathizer. She was in charge of distributing the Organization’s publications, security, and planning and executing election activities for the MKO. Later on, she joined in the MKO’s armed struggle against the Islamic Republic regime.
Arrest and detention
There is no specific information on the defendant’s arrest and detention. According to the MKO website, Ms. Abolfathi was arrested after the Revolutionary Guards surrounded her residence on August 19, 1981. She was taken to Tabriz prison. During her 34-day detention, she was tortured repeatedly. The prison authorities asked her several times to repent and give up her friends in order to be pardoned; but, she refused.
Trial
No information is available on the defendant’s trial.
Charges
According to the communiqué of the General Public Prosecutor’s Office, Ms. Abolfathi was charged with, “Collaboration and active connection with the Hypocrites Organization [Islamic regime’s name for the MKO], membership in team houses, supplying and storing explosives and illegal weapons, participating in street clashes and demonstrations, agreeing with and confirming all of the Hypocrites Organization’s beliefs in bearing arms, planning terrorist plots to create fear among the Muslim people of Mashad, plotting and revolting against the Islamic Republic”
These charges are collective and brought against the defendant and 27 other individuals. The prosecution does not mention any specific offence for the defendant.
The validity of the criminal charges brought against this defendant cannot be ascertained in the absence of the basic guarantees of a fair trial.
Evidence of guilt
The report of this execution contains no evidence provided against the defendant.
Defence
No information is available on Ms. Abolfathi's defence.
Judgment
No specific information is available about this execution. Based on the newspaper report, Tabriz’s Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced Ms. Abolfathi and 34 others to death. These sentences were carried out between September 23 and 25, 1981. According to the MKO website, Ms. Abolfathi was executed by a firing squad on September 24, 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 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 peaceful assembly.
UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 21.
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.
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 1Article 2%viol_ctcidp_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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