Execution of Iranian Kurdish student postponed, says lawyer

Sun, 26 Dec 2010

Tehran - The execution of an Iranian Kurdish student, which was supposed to be carried out on Sunday, has been postponed, the student's lawyer told ISNA news agency.

"My client was scheduled to be executed this morning but it was not carried out in order to allocate more time to further investigate the case," his lawyer Nemat Ahmadi told ISNA.

Habib Latifi, an active member of the banned Iranian-Kurdish rebel group Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), was sentenced to death in 2008. An appeal court upheld the verdict in 2009.

Just before the scheduled execution, Ahmadi had once again written a letter to the head of the judiciary, Sadeq Larijani, asking for the sentence to be revised.

The execution was eventually postponed and Latifi allowed to meet his family members, the lawyer added.

At least 12 Kurds, all reportedly members of PJAK, are on death row after being found guilty of armed confrontation with Iranian forces.

Iranian Kurds, who are estimated to number around 7 million, mainly live in the north-western and western provinces of West Azerbaijan, Kermanshah and Kurdistan which border Turkey and northern Iraq.

Kurds in Iran have been at odds with the government in Tehran for decades as a result of their attempts to gain autonomy in Kurdish- populated provinces and form an alliance with Kurds in Turkey, Iraq and Syria.

Their efforts have led to bloody clashes in all four countries, but in Iran the Kurds are relatively integrated into Iranian society. They have some cultural autonomy but are, for example, obliged to learn Persian at school.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/359718,kurdish-student-postponed-lawyer.html.