Iran: Five prisoners including 3 Afghans hanged

NCRI – At least five men, including three citizens of Afghanistan, were hanged in two prisons in Iran over the past weekend.

Farshid Jaafari was hanged on Sunday in Adelabad Prison in the city of Shiraz. He had been sentenced to death for drug-related offences.

A group of four prisoners, including three citizens of Afghanistan, were hanged on Saturday in the central prison in the city of Zahedan in southeastern Iran.

The Afghans - Seyed Alam Ozbak, 26, Nasimollah Ozbak, 25, and Soltan Ozbak, 30, - were hanged along with a 60-year-old Iranian man.

Some 1,400 individuals have been executed in Iran under Hassan Rouhani. The victims included political prisoners, women, juvenile offenders and citizens of Afghanistan.

The U.N.'s special investigator on Iran said on Monday that the human rights situation and repression of Iranian women and activists has worsened since Hassan Rouhani became president in 2013.

Dr. Ahmed Shaheed said in Geneva on Monday: "in my view the overall situation has worsened, as indicated by the surge in executions."

He lamented that Iran executes more people per capita than any other country in the world.

"There is a lot of concern amongst the Iranian society that the nuclear file may be casting a shadow over the human rights discussion," Shaheed told the news briefing.

Mr. Shaheed, a Muslim and former foreign minister of the Maldives, has not been allowed to visit Iran since taking up the independent post.