Rights Groups Call For Urgent Action To Stop Possible Execution Of Iranian Professor

ICBPS- In a phone call to his wife yesterday, Ahmadreza Djalali (Jalali), an Iranian-Swedish professor on death row in Evin Prison, told her that he had been transferred to solitary confinement and will soon be transferred to Rajai Shahr Prison where his death sentence is to be carried out.

Amnesty International also has called for an urgent action to stop the execution, said ‘we were horrified to learn that the authorities have instructed the office in charge of implementing sentences to transfer Ahmadreza Djalali to solitary confinement and implement his death sentence no later than a week from 24 November.’

The medical doctor and university lecturer, who had studied and taught in Sweden, Italy, and Belgium, was arrested in April 2016 for alleged espionage charges.

‘Ahmadreza Djalali was sentenced to death after a grossly unfair trial that once again exposes not only the Iranian authorities’ steadfast commitment to use of the death penalty but their utter contempt for the rule of law,’ Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa said in 2017.

“Like other dual-nationals, Ahmadreza Djalali is a victim of a state hostage-taking by the Islamic Republic. He was sentenced to death after a grossly unfair trial based on fabricated charges. We call on the international community to utilise all their diplomatic means to put intensified pressure on the Islamic Republic to halt the death sentence of Ahmadreza Djalali,” IHR Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.

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Ahmadreza Djalali who had travelled to Iran at the official invitation of the University of Tehran, was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents on 24 April 2016 and spent three months in the Ministry’s detention center. Initially charged with “collaborating with hostile states”, he was later convicted of ‘”Moharebeh (enmity against God) through espionage for Israel” by the Revolutionary Court of Tehran which was also upheld by the Supreme Court.’

Jalali is one of several Iranians from abroad who has been jailed during visits to Iran.

The Institute of Capacity Building for Political Studies (ICBPS) is a non-governmental research institute focusing on political studies, international security, and international relations.