Urgent global action is needed to halt the imminent execution of humanitarian aid worker, Pakhshan Azizi. Iran’s Supreme Court has rejected the request for a review of the conviction, highlighting how the Iranian authorities remain adamantly resolved to use the death penalty as a tool of political repression. Her lawyer, Amir Raesian, said he was notified of the decision on 5 February and that her execution could now be carried out at any moment.
Pakhshan Azizi was detained solely in relation to her peaceful human rights and humanitarian activities, including providing support to women and children in northeast Syria who were displaced following attacks by the Islamic State armed group.
In August 2023, Pakhshan was forcibly disappeared, a crime under international law. She was held in prolonged solitary confinement for five months without access to a lawyer or contact with her family, subjected to torture and other ill-treatment by agents who repeatedly told her that she had no right to live and threatened to execute her. Instead of facing imminent execution on a conviction of convicted of “armed rebellion against the state”, she should be immediately and unconditionally released.
It is up to us, the international community, to immediately urge the Iranian authorities to halt plans to execute Pakhshan Azizi, quash her conviction and death sentence and release her immediately and unconditionally.