According to multiple news agencies, on January 23, 2024, two prisoners were executed in Qezel Hasar prison in Karaj. Muhammad Qoubadlou, a young activist who was arrested a year earlier after the Women Life Freedom unrest in Iran, and Farhad Salimi, a kurdish theology teacher who had been arrested fourteen years earlier for his religious beliefs, were the victims.

Farhad Salimi was arrested along with six other prisoners, Anwar Khezri, Qasem Abasteh, Dawood Abdollahi, Khosrow Basharat, Kamran Shekhe, and Ayub Karimi, on November 6, 2008, on charges of conspiracy against the regime and being a member of a Salafi group. They were all convicted and sentenced to death by Judge Muhammad Mugheiseh in March 2016. A year later, their sentences were sent to Revolution Court number 15 for reevaluation, and in 2018, Judge Qasim Slawati confirmed their death sentences. In the last months of 2023, Qasem Abasteh, Ayub Karimi, and Dawood Abdollahi were executed.

Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the regime has used execution as a means to suppress protests and when public opinion turns against them. Executions are used as a tool to instill fear among citizens, and Kurdish people are often targeted with mass arrests, unfair trials, torture, and forced confessions. The young men are convicted and sentenced to death during showcase trials on regular basis.

The Nemiran center strongly condemns the executions of Muhammad Qoubadlou and Farhad Salimi, and our thoughts are with the families of the victims.

May his sole rest in peace