German lawmakers sponsor four Iranian protesters on death row

Four German parliamentarians have taken on political sponsorships for four Iranian protesters who were recently sentenced to death over their alleged involvement in the killing of a Basij militia member during the 2022 nationwide protests.

On November 13, the Islamic Republic's Judiciary issued death sentences for Milad Armoun, Alireza Kafaei, Amir Mohammad Khosheghbal, Navid Najaran, Hossein Nemati, and Alireza Barmarzpournak, the six individuals accused of killing Basij member Arman Aliverdi in Tehran's Ekbatan apartment complex. The charges against them remain contested, however, due to a lack of clear evidence linking them to the crime.

In a statement, German Parliament members Tobias B. Bacherle, Oliver Kaczmarek, and Anne Monika Spallek, along with Lisa-Kristin Kapteinat from the North Rhine-Westphalia State Parliament, announced political sponsorships for four of the accused, urging Iran's government to release them immediately.

"We express our profound concern over the devastating developments... They were all sentenced to death by the brutal Iranian regime without a fair trial and under inhumane conditions," the German MPs said, adding that the Islamic Republic "seeks to carry out executions to suppress resistance entirely."

The Ekbatan Complex case, tied to the broader unrest that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody, involves accusations that the defendants participated in Aliverdi's killing. A video circulating on social media showed Aliverdi, bleeding from the face and head as a protester kicked him. Authorities allege that protesters stabbed him, but the defendants deny the charges, with Ekbatan residents saying that Aliverdi was attempting to infiltrate the protests.

The controversy surrounding the case is compounded by reports of torture and mistreatment of the accused, with human rights organizations expressing concern over the fairness of the trial.

Iran's execution spree

The death sentences for the six protesters came against the backdrop of the Islamic Republic's execution spree over the past few years. At least 711 people have been executed in Iran since January, prompting female political prisoners at Evin prison in Tehran to call on authorities to stop issuing death sentences.

The Norway-based Iranian rights group Hengaw reported on Saturday that 13 of the 711 documented executions this year involved political prisoners. The group also documented 21 fatalities in Iran’s prisons in 2024, including four deaths of political detainees and eight deaths attributed to torture.

"Iran has an appalling record of executions, most recently evidenced by the execution of German citizen Jamshid Sharmahd," the four German parliamentarians said in their statement released on Saturday. "The systematic use of the death penalty to suppress political opinions constitutes a grave violation of fundamental human rights and has been strongly condemned by the international community."

On November 5, Iran’s judiciary announced that German-Iranian citizen Jamshid Sharmahd died in late October before his scheduled execution. “Jamshid Sharmahd's death sentence was set to be carried out, but fate offered no reprieve, and he died before the execution could proceed," the Judiciary's spokesman said.

Sharmahd was abducted by Iranian agents during a visit to the United Arab Emirates in 2020 and forcibly taken to Iran. In February 2023, Iran's Judiciary sentenced him to death on charges of endangering national security. Tehran says that Sharmahd was responsible for a 2008 attack on a mosque in Shiraz that killed 14 people and injured 200.