Amnesty International on Tuesday condemned the executions in Iran of four Kurdish political activists and another Iranian man, all convicted of "moharebeh" (enmity against God).

The four Kurds – Farzad Kamangar, Ali Heydarian, Farhad Vakili, Shirin Alam-Holi - along with Mehdi Eslamian, were hanged on Sunday, 9 May at Evin prison in Tehran. The five were accused of "enmity against God" for carrying out "terrorist acts" and convicted of this vaguely worded charge which can carry the death penalty and is usually applied to those who take up arms against the state.

"We condemn these executions which were carried out without any prior warning. Despite the serious accusations against them, the five were denied fair trials. Three of the defendants were tortured and two forced to 'confess' under duress," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

"They were then executed in violation of Iranian law, which requires the authorities to notify prisoners' lawyers.in advance before carrying out executions."

Speech, Press, and Assembly: Free speech, as such, does not exist in Iran. Human rights activists and other perceived agitators are sometimes subject to beatings, arrests, torture, and disappearance.

Religious Expression: The Islamic Republic of Iran is a religious institution with no secular concept of law. Those who convert from Islam to another faith may face execution for apostasy. Religious minorities are routinely subject to widespread persecution.

Women's Rights: In Iran, women can vote and run for Parliament and are not prohibited from traveling freely, but they are also subject to police beatings and torture for violating perceived social norms, are not protected from domestic violence, and are discriminated against in other subtle ways (such as inheritance law

Abdolkarim Soroush is on of Iran's best-known intellectuals - and he is also considered an enemy of the state in Iran because of his ideas regarding the relationship between religion, government, and science. According to Soroush, science cannot progress very well or very far under totalitarian regimes - more interestingly, perhaps, is the his addition that this is an Islamic, not a Western, perspective.

There is no room in revolutionary courts for defense lawyers because they keep quoting laws to play for time."