Farzad Kamangar ( fa, فرزاد کمانگر; – 9 May 2010) was a 32-year-old

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

ian

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

human rights activist A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campai ...

and

social worker Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...

from the city of

Kamyaran Kamyaran ( fa, كامياران; ku-2, کامێران; also Romanized as Kāmyārān) is a city in Kamyaran County, Kurdistan Province, Iran, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2016 census, the city had a population of 57,077 in 16,547 f ...

, Iran who was executed on 9 May 2010.THE WORDS OF FARZAD KAMANGER
/ref>FARZAD KAMANGAR and 4 Other political prisoners EXECUTED!
/ref>

The Accusations and the Courts

Kamangar was prosecuted on charges of

Mohareb In Islamic law, ''hirabah'' is a legal category that comprises highway robbery (traditionally understood as aggravated robbery or grand larceny, unlike theft, which has a different punishment), rape, and terrorism. Ḥirābah ( ar, حرابة) is ...

"enmity towards God". An

Islamic Revolutionary Court Islamic Revolutionary Court (also Revolutionary Tribunal, ''Dadgahha-e Enqelab''Bakhash, Shaul, ''Reign of the Ayatollahs'', Basic Books, 1984, p.59-61) (Persian: دادگاه انقلاب اسلامی) is a special system of courts in the Islamic ...

sentenced Kamangar to death on February 25, 2008 on charges against

national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...

including being a member of PJAK and accusations of active participation in several bombing attacks among which was the 2006 explosion in the

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

gas export pipeline. According to his lawyer,

Khalil Bahramian Khalil, Khelil, or Khaleel may refer to: People * Khalil (Pashtun tribe) * Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931), Lebanese-American writer, poet, visual artist, and Lebanese nationalist * Khalil (scholar), 19th century Islamic scholar in the Emirate of Ha ...

, "Nothing in Kamangar’s judicial files and records demonstrates any links to the charges brought against him." Bahramian, the

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

, who was present during the closed-door court hearing, described it as

“Lasting no more than five minutes, with the Judge issuing his sentence without any explanation and then promptly leaving the room. ... I have seen absolutely zero evidence presented against Kamangar. In my forty years in the legal profession, I have never witnessed such a prosecution.”

For this denial, Kamangar was repeatedly

tortured Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

reports that Kamangar was repeatedly beaten, flogged, and electrocuted, and that he suffered from spasms in his arms and legs as a result of the

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

. The Supreme Court officially confirmed Kamangar's

death sentence Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

on July 11, 2008.RIGHTS CRISIS ESCALATES, September 2008
Kamangar was one of the six

political prisoners A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although nu ...

highlighted in the

International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran The Center for Human Rights in Iran (formerly the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran; ICHRI) is an American non-government organization that aims to promote human rights in Iran. The group started in late 2007 when several human right ...

's 18 September 2008 document "Rights Crisis Escalates, Faces and Cases from Ahmadinejad's Crackdown" Kamangar participated in the

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...

to protest the execution of

Ehsan Fatahian Ehsan Fatahian ( fa, احسان فتاحیان; ku, ئیحسان فەتاحیان; b. 1982 in Kermanshah - d. November 11, 2009 in Sanandaj), was a Kurdish activist, who was executed on Wednesday, November 11, 2009, in Sanandaj Central Prison ...

Human Rights Organizations' Reaction

Education International Education International (EI) is a global union federation (GUF) of teachers' trade unions consisting of 401 member organizations in 172 countries and territories that represents over 30 million education personnel from pre-school through universi ...

, and other teachers' and human rights organizations have called for Kamangar's sentence to be commuted.

Kamangar's Notes

Kamangar in a piece describes his time at the prison as follows:

"''...I spent close to a month in solitary isolation, at the end of the first floor, in section 113 f the prison It had a horrible stench. During this period I was not allowed to have visits nor telephone calls with any member of my family. During the 3 months of solitary confinement I was not allowed to go out in the free air. After enduring these months they moved me to a bigger cell, cell number 10, a cell intended for several persons, and I spent close to two months there. Still I was not allowed to have any contact with a lawyer or my family....''"

A part of Kamangar's letter "Be Strong Comrades":

"''Is it possible to carry the heavy burden of being a teacher and be responsible for spreading the seeds of knowledge and still be silent? Is it possible to see the lumps in the throats of the students and witness their thin and malnourished faces and keep quiet? Is it possible to be in the year of no justice and fairness and fail to teach the H for Hope and E for Equality, even if such teachings land you in Evin Prison or result in your death?''"

a quote from Farzad's letter to his students:

"Boys of the land of the sun, I know you cannot sit, sing, and laugh with your classmates anymore, because after the tragedy of becoming a man, you have to face the grief of having to “earn bread”. But Remember to not turn your backs on your poems, your songs, your Leyla’s and your dreams. Teach your children to be offspring of “poems and rain” of their land; for the present and tomorrow. I leave you to the wind and sunshine so that, in the near future, you will sing lessons of love and sincerity to our motherland. Your childhood friend, playmate, and teacher"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kamangar, Farzad 1970s births 2010 deaths Iranian activists 21st-century executions by Iran Executed Iranian people Iranian Kurdish people Iranian torture victims People executed by Iran by hanging