People’s Democratic Party (HDP) vice co-chair Meral Danış Bektaş has called on international agencies and institutions to take urgent action against death sentences and executions in Iran.

Meral Danış Bektaş issued a written statement drawing attention to death penalties and executions in Iran and called on the international agencies to take action in the scope of primarily the UN Human Rights Convention and European Convention on Human Rights, according to which death penalties are deemed a violation of the right to life of an individual.

Bektaş stressed that Iran carries out more death sentences than any other country in the world just to strengthen its own regime and to intimidate the opposition. Bektaş said Iran has turned into a country of savagery through increasing executions.

HDP vice co-chair said taking urgent action against these savage policies of Iran is a human necessity and defence of human rights as well as an issue of conscience and called on the UN to take steps. Bektaş stressed in her statement that the death penalty is a crime against humanity and remaining silent in the face of this crime means being part of it, calling on Iran to remove the death penalty.

Bektaş also drew attention to the fact that most of the recent executions in Iran have been directed against Kurdish activists and said Iran is taking revenge for the rising Kurdish struggle in the region and using the death penalty as a political tool. Bektaş added that these policies of Iran demonstrate how corrupt the regime in Iran has become.

The HDP vice chair warned Iran that the continuation of these savage policies will lead to nothing but increasing anger amongst the oppressed peoples, primarily the Kurds, in the Middle East, which is passing through a tumultuous period.

Bektaş recalled the execution of three Kurdish activists, Saman Nesimi and Hebibullah Efshari and Eli Efshari, despite all the protests to stop the executions and offered her and the party’s condolences to the families of the activists.