BEIRUT- Human Rights Watch Monday denounced Iran’s hanging of 20 Sunni prisoners in one of its biggest mass executions in years as a “shameful low point in its human rights record”.
Iran last week said it had hanged 20 Sunni prisoners on Tuesday.
“Iran’s mass execution of prisoners on August 2 at Rajai Shahr prison is a shameful low point in its human rights record,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at HRW.
“With at least 230 executions since January 1, Iran is yet again the regional leader in executions,” she said.
The New York-based rights group said “two lawyers who represented some of the men told (it) that their clients did not get a fair trial and that their due process rights had been violated”.
It said rights groups believed the 20 were among 33 Sunni men, including possibly a minor, arrested in 2009 and 2010 and convicted of “enmity against God”.
According to rights group Amnesty International, Iran was one of the world’s top executioners in 2015 when it put 977 people to death, mostly on drug trafficking charges.
Last week’s execution, which was also criticised by the European Union and France, came as the EU had reportedly proposed talks with Iran on human rights.
Over two days in 2009, Iran hanged 44 convicted drug traffickers in one of the country’s largest mass executions.
In 2013, it hanged 16 Sunnis in the eastern province of Zahedan.

Source: AFP, 8 Aug. 2016