Human rights experts call on Iran to cancel execution of elderly woman for pro-woman message

Iran is allegedly on the verge of executing a 67-year-old woman for possessing a piece of cloth with the slogan “Woman, Resistance, Freedom” and recording a message she hasn’t published, prompting human rights experts affiliated with the United Nations to intervene with Iranian authorities.Special rapporteurs on Iranian human rights, violence against women and girls and “extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions,” as well as the UN working group on discrimination against women and girls, laid out the Islamic regime’s actions against Zahra Shahbaz Tabari in the broader context of its “systematic use of the death penalty for vaguely defined national security offences,” an alleged violation of its international obligations.
Authorites raided Tabari’s home without a judicial warrant, interrogated her for a month in solitary confinement and pressured her to “confess to taking up arms against the State and to membership in an opposition group,” finding her guilty and ordering her execution after a videoconference trial that took less than 10 minutes, the experts said.
She was given a court-appointed lawyer and denied a lawyer of her own choice, denied “adequate time to prepare a defence” and convicted with evidence “that appears insufficient to support a charge of baghi,” meaning “armed rebellion against the foundations of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” which makes the conviction “unsafe.”
As a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights before Iran’s makeover as an Islamic republic, Iran is legally obligated to restrict the death penalty to “most serious crimes,” which refers to intentional killing, said the experts.
“Criminalising women’s activism for gender equality and treating such expression as evidence of armed rebellion constitutes a grave form of gender discrimination,” they said.
At least 52 individuals are facing the death penalty for supposed national security offenses including baghi, moharebeh or waging war against God, “corruption on earth, and espionage.” One other woman is currently facing execution for baghi but other death sentences have been overturned, the experts said.
Among them is Reem Alsalem, the special rapporteur for violence against women and girls, known in the West for speaking against gender ideology. 
She called the Biden administration’s regulatory proposal to determine athletic eligibility by gender identity instead of sex a violation of “international human rights law,” and advocated for Idaho’s ban on males in female sports at the Supreme Court.

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