IRAN. FORMER NORWEGIAN PM URGES IRAN NOT TO HANG DISSIDENT

former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik appealed to the Iranian government not to go ahead as planned with the execution of long-time political prisoner Valiollah Feyz-Mahdavi. Feyz-Mahdavi, a 28-year-old member of Iran’s main opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI), had been officially informed that his execution sentence would be carried out on May 16, according to his relatives in Iran.
Bondevik, head of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, said that Feyz-Mahdavi was believed to be at “imminent danger” of execution.
“I am concerned over reports noting that he was not granted access to a lawyer during his trial and as such his trial did not meet international standards for fair trial, as laid down by Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Iran is a State Party”, the former Norwegian Prime Minister wrote.
Bondevik added that he was “deeply concerned” by the high number of executions in Iran and urged Tehran to refrain from executing Feyz-Mahdavi.
Feyz-Mahdavi had been arrested in 2001 for sympathising with the PMOI and tortured in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, west of Tehran.
Bondevik also expressed concern at the overall human rights situation in Iran.
He highlighted the case of Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh who was once again on death row after originally having her death sentence suspended.
Haghighat-Pajouh had been sentenced to death for the murder of her husband. She alleged that her husband was a drug addict and had tried to rape her daughter, 15, from a previous marriage, according to Amnesty International.