25 August, 2008
The ICEM condemns the recent death sentence by Iran’s Revolutionary Court on Farzad Kamanger, a teacher, human rights activist, and trade union leader in the Kurdish Teachers’ Trade Association.
In a letter to the Iranian government, the ICEM demands the sentence be commuted, and that Iran stop all repressive measures against the 33-year-old’s family and a Committee to Stop Farzad Kamanger’s Death Sentence that is attempting to assist him.
In the statement, the ICEM also called for release of other teachers unfairly held, and an end to the brutal tyranny imposed on education and teaching.
Kaminger was incarcerated as a national security risk in August 2005. Exact charges have never been forthcoming. In prison, he has been subjected to torture while speaking out against abhorrent health care conditions in Iran’s prisons.
The ICEM believes the imprisonment and death sentence are acts against his ethnicity and his trade union involvement.
“We are deeply concerned about this execution, following an unfair trial that denied him the right to defense,” said the ICEM, adding the Iranian government has denied him “unimpeded contact with his family and his lawyer” throughout the long incarceration.