URMIYE, Iranian Kurdistan,— The young Iranian Kurdish man who has been at the center of an international campaign to urge Iranian authorities to spare his life was executed Thursday, according to local media in Iranian Kurdistan.

Saman Naseem, 22, who was arrested as a minor, was executed in Urmiye (Orumyiah) prison in the capital of Iran’s West Azerbaijan Province, the reports say.

Naseem’s family was reportedly threatened by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence to remain silent after the execution order had been carried out.

Saman’s family have been told o collect his body on Saturday, according to several independent sources. Despite the international appeals to halt the execution, Naseem was hanged on Thursday.

Iran Human Rights (IHR) reported earlier that Saman’s family were contacted by the authorities on Friday to meet at the prison to collect Saman’s belongings on Saturday. According to several independent sources, Saman’s family have been asked earlier today to collect Saman’s body on Saturday February 21. It is still unclear whether Saman was executed Thursday or Friday.

While Naseem’s lawyer has confirmed the execution of the Kurdish political prisoner despite all the calls by human rights organizations, worrying wait continues for three other Kurdish prisoners on death row.

In the meantime, two Kurdish brothers Ali Afshari and Habibullah Afshari have also been executed Friday. The Afshari family has been informed on Friday that the bodies of the two brothers could be reclaimed on Friday.

Naseem had been charged with “enmity against God” and “corruption on earth” in April 2013, following his arrest in 2011 at the age of 17.

The charges were connected to Naseem’s suspected membership in the armed opposition group Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) and his alleged participation in an armed battle with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Rights groups and activists made repeated calls for Iran to cancel Naseem’s execution in recent days on the basis of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which Iran is a signatory.

Amnesty International warned Thursday of a potential secret execution, with the organization’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, saying, “The lack of news about Saman Naseem’s fate or whereabouts with prison officers denying his family any information is cruel and inhuman.”

In a letter released by Amnesty International last week, Naseem described torture “so severe that it left me unable to walk,” and activists have said his original confession had been made under duress.

UN experts on Wednesday joined a chorus of calls for Tehran to halt plans to execute a young Iranian Kurdish man.

Five others were set to be executed along with Naseem, including four Kurds and one Azeri prisoner.

The PJAK, or the (Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane) (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan), is a militant Kurdish nationalist group based on the border areas between Iraq’s Kurdistan region and Iran’s Kurdish region, that has been carrying out attacks Iranian forces in the Kurdistan Province of Iran (Eastern Kurdistan) and other Kurdish-inhabited areas.

PJAK, the most active Kurdish group in Iranian Kurdistan, is a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Confederation (Koma Civaken Kurdistan or KCK), which is an alliance of Kurdish groups and divisions led by an elected Executive Council.

Since 2004 the PJAK took up arms took up arms to establish a semi-autonomous Kurdish regional entities or Kurdish federal states in Iran, similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. The PJAK has about 3,000 armed militiamen, half the members of PJAK are women.

Estimate to over 12 million Kurds live in Iran.

Copyright ©, respective author or news agency, nrttv.com | Ekurd.net | Agencies

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