Habib Asyoud (Habib Farajollah Chaab), an Arab political prisoner, was kidnapped by the agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Turkey on October 9, 2020, and secretly transferred to Iran. Mr. Asyoud is one of the leaders of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA). The security officers tortured him into confessing that the members of his group were involved in terrorist operations in Iran. Three years before Mr. Asyoud's kidnapping, the former leader of ASMLA, Ahmad Mola Nissi, was shot dead on November 8, 2017, in The Hague, Netherlands. His family members were also arrested in Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Radio and Television (IRIB) aired the forced confession of Mr. Habib Asyoud a few days after his abduction. Sometime later, at least 22 relatives of this political prisoner were arrested by the security forces in Shushtar and taken to unknown places.
A few months after his arrest, an indictment was issued for Habib Asyoud. After the trial, this Arab political prisoner was sentenced to death in court without the right to access a lawyer. On March 12, 2023, the Mizan news agency wrote that after the appeal, the country's Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence and considered it final. A week before this date, the judiciary of the Islamic Republic sentenced six other Arab prisoners to death for being members of ASMLA.
The Islamic Republic has always looked at Arab citizens as a security problem. Innumerable discriminations and humiliation of the Arabs' identity, the imposition of poverty and unemployment, the looting of environmental resources, and the unequal distribution of water have turned the Arab-inhabited areas into a center of protest against oppression. The number of political prisoners in Khuzestan province in the 2010s is reported to be more than 14 thousand people. In November 2019, IRGC forces killed dozens of Arab citizens with DShK machine guns in the outskirts of Mahshahr. The Islamic Republic accuses the Arabs of the Ahvaz region of "collaborating with foreign governments in the region" by dichotomizing "Iranian-Arab," persecuting and suppressing them and issuing death sentences without going through legal procedures.
We, the signatories of this petition, request the cancellation of Habib Asyoud's death sentence because 1) he was kidnapped illegally and in a terrorist manner from another country and transferred to Iran against his will; 2) his confessions were made under torture. It has no legal standing, and 3) the proceedings and the court were opaque and without access to an independent lawyer.
Update - Unfortunately, the death sentence of Mr. Habib Asyoud was carried out in the morning on Saturday, May 6, 2023.
امضا با تلگرام