Kurdish journalists sentenced to death amid calls for international pressure on Iran

Kurdish human rights and political groups have launched an internet campaign to save the lives of two Kurdish journalists who were sentenced to death in the Iranian Kurdish city of Marivan on July 16, according to IPS.

Adnan Hasanpoor was found guilty of “moharebe”, or taking up arms against the Islamic state, and espionage—the result of phone interviews with foreign media, including the Voice of America. Abdolvahed (Hiva) Bootimar was also charged with moharebe.

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontieres, RSF) has voiced concern over the sentences of the two journalists and appealed to the international community to ask Iran to refrain from executing the two men “who only exercised their right to inform their fellow citizens.”

Iran is on its way to becoming on of the world’s biggest prisons for journalists, RSF said.

Three other Kurdish journalists, Aku Kordnasab, Eilal Qavami and Mohammad Sadiq Kaboudvand, were arrested during the past month, and Kaveh Javanmard was arrested in May and sentenced to two years in prison.

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