4 Kurdish Men Hanged in Kermanshah

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, four Kurdish men were hanged in Kermanshah (Dizel Abad) Prison on 7th January 2025. Their identities have been established as Mohammad Shahidi, Mozafar Shahsavari, Ashkan Kazemi (left photo) and Farman Afristam (right photo) who were all sentenced to qisas(retribution-in-kind) for murder by the Criminal Court in separate cases.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “Mohammad and Mozafar were arrested four years ago. Farman was of Yarsan faith and also arrested four years ago. The plaintiff in the case was his paternal aunt. Ashkan was from the village of Kazem Khani Alia in Gilan and in the army. He was accused of shooting dead his wife, brother-in-law and her lawyer outside the judiciary building in Kermanshah over her dowry around four years ago.”

At the time of writing, none of their executions have been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Those charged with the umbrella term of “intentional murder” are sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) regardless of intent or circumstances due to a lack of grading in law. Once a defendant has been convicted, the victim’s family are required to choose between death as retribution, diya (blood money) or forgiveness. Crucially, while an indicative amount is set by the Judiciary every year, there is no legal limit to how much can be demanded by families of the victims. IHRNGO has recorded many cases where defendants are executed because they cannot afford to pay the blood money.

In 2023, at least 282 people including two juvenile offenders and 15 women, were executed for murder charges, the second highest number of qisas executions since 2010. Only 20% of the recorded qisas executions were announced by official sources. In 2023, Iran Human Rights also recorded 857 cases of families choosing diya or forgiveness instead of qisas executions.