GENEVA (Reuters) - Iran executed three Iranian Kurdish men accused of belonging to a militant group and taking part in attacks against civilians and security forces in the Kurdish region of western Iran, the judiciary’s news service reported on Saturday.

The executions took place despite a call on Friday for them to be halted by two U.N. human rights special rapporteurs, Javaid Rehman and Agnes Callamard, who said in a statement that the men had not been given a fair trial.

Amnesty International said the accused men had been denied access to their lawyers after being arrested and had said they were tortured into making confessions.

“We are horrified by the news that the Iranian authorities have executed these men, despite widespread condemnation of their death sentences and calls from U.N. human rights experts and other bodies to halt their executions,” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s research and advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement on Saturday.

The judiciary’s Mizan news service said Loqman Moradi and Zanyar Moradi were accused of carrying out an attack in the western town of Marivan in July 2009 that killed three people, including the son of a prominent cleric.

Ramin Hossein Panahi was accused of participating in an assault targeting security forces in the town of Sanandaj in June 2017.

Iran has one of the world’s highest execution rates. According to Amnesty International, 51 percent of all recorded executions in 2017 were carried out in Iran.</s>TEHRAN: Iran executed three alleged Kurdish separatists on Saturday, local media reported, despite criticism by the United Nations that at least one had been tortured in prison. Ramin Hossein Panahi, Zaniar Moradi and Loghman Moradi were all executed on Saturday, according to the conservative Fars news agency. It said Panahi had planned to bomb a rally in Iran’s Kurdish province last June. Zaniar and Loghman Moradi were accused of membership in an unnamed “terrorist separatist group” and of killing four people, including the son of the Friday prayers leader in the Kurdish city of Mariwan. Panahi was accused of membership in Komala, which has been waging a long-running separatist insurgency in Iranian Kurdistan from bases across the border in Iraq. He was sentenced to death in April, drawing criticism from UN human rights experts, who said his execution “would be unconscionable”.“We are deeply disturbed by reports that Mr. Panahi has suffered human rights violations before and during his trial, including incommunicado detention, torture and ill-treatment, and denial of access to a lawyer and adequate medical care,” they said in a report at the time.They pointed to reports that Panahi had been denied medical care for injuries suffered during his imprisonment, including from reported beating with cables.He had also reportedly started a hunger strike at the beginning of this year in the Rajaei-Shahr prison in Karaj, near Tehran.</s>The United Nations is calling on Iran to halt the violent executions of three Kurdish men on September 8.

The Islamic Republic vows to execute cousins Zanyar and Loghman Moradi, and Ramin Hossein Panahi on Saturday.

"We urge the Government of Iran to immediately halt their executions and to annul the death sentences against them in compliance with its international obligations," said Agnes Callamard and Javaid Rehman, Special Rapporteurs from the UN.

According to the the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Zanyar and Loghman Moradi are accused of the 2009 murder of the son of an Islamic cleric in Marivan, Kurdistan province. Iranian authorities later arrested Panahi last June for his alleged membership in a Kurdish nationalist group.

All three of the men reportedly faced severe torture in prison.

Zanyar and Loghman Moradi were also severely beaten, tied up in stress positions and threatened with rape, if they did not confess to the murder. The pair were brought before the revolutionary court in December 2010 the capital Tehran where they were sentenced to death by public hanging. The trial "apparently lasted only 20 minutes."

"During the trial, they both denied the charges in court and explained that they had confessed to the crimes only due to torture following their initial arrest," said OHCHR. "We are alarmed by information received that Zanyar and Loghman Moradi suffered human rights violations before and during their trial, including torture and other ill-treatment and denial of access to a lawyer,"

Panahi was also repeatedly beaten in detention, denied medical care, access to a lawyer, and was held in solitary confinement until January.

The men's families are heartbroken and pray for their urgent release.

The three Kurds have been denied access to their families and two of them were put in solitary confinement on September 5. Experts believe their death is near.

Iran is one of the worst human rights abusers in the world and the United Nations, activists, and faith-based organizations have repeatedly condemned its actions.</s>Relatives of three Iranian Kurdish activists sentenced to death by Iranian courts say they have learned that authorities were preparing to execute at least two of the young men by Saturday.

In a video message filmed on Friday and sent exclusively to VOA Persian, the mother of one of the jailed men and a brother of one of the other activists issued a joint appeal to the international community to stop Iran from carrying out imminent executions of all three of them.

The video was filmed in the northwestern Iranian city of Marivan at the home of Ameneh Ghaderi, mother of Zaniar Moradi, one of the men sentenced to death. The other two condemned activists include Zaniar’s cousin, Loghman Moradi, and Ramin Hossein Panahi, whose brother Amjad Hossein Panahi appeared in the video, sitting alongside Ghaderi.

Video message from relatives of Iranian Kurdish activists sentenced to death, broadcast on VOA Persian’s NewsHour program:

Speaking to the camera, Amjad Hossein Panahi said he and Ghaderi received a message that authorities wanted family members to visit the three men immediately at Rajaei Shahr prison in Karaj, on the western outskirts of Tehran. “We heard unfortunate news that when family members come to see Zaniar and Loghman, it would be the last meeting, while there has been no news about Ramin since Thursday,” he said. “We were told from various sources that they were going to be hanged either Friday night or Saturday morning.”

Ghaderi said that for the past two days, she has heard warnings that authorities were going to execute the young men. “Please, don’t let them execute our children,” she said.

In a Friday statement, the Britain-based rights group Amnesty International called on Iran to “immediately halt” what it said was the planned executions of Zaniar and Loghman Moradi. The two cousins have spent eight years on death row since confessing to a 2009 killing of the son of a Muslim cleric in Marivan — a confession that both men later said was extracted under torture, according to Amnesty. The rights group said Rajaei Shahr prison authorities moved the cousins from a general ward to solitary confinement on Wednesday and telephoned the men’s families on Thursday, instructing the relatives to visit the detainees immediately. It said those moves sparked fears that their executions were imminent.

Amnesty said Ramin Hossein Panahi began a hunger strike at Rajaei Shahr prison on August 26 by sewing his lips together in protest at his death sentence. It said he was immediately removed from the prison’s general ward and had not been heard from since, prompting concerns that he also was at imminent risk of execution.

Panahi was sentenced to death in January for allegedly drawing a weapon against Iranian security forces operating in northwestern Iran’s predominantly ethnic Kurdish region in June 2017. He confessed to taking up arms against the state, but Amnesty said family members who saw him in court believe he also was tortured into confessing because of apparent torture marks on his body.

Iranian authorities also charged all three men with being members of Komala, a Kurdish nationalist group banned in Iran. Amnesty has denounced their trials as “grossly unfair” proceedings that lasted less than an hour.

A provincial Iranian state TV station, Network 5, broadcasted a report on Friday, quoting Iran’s Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) as saying family members of the Moradi cousins were concerned that the two men could be executed on Saturday. But there has been no comment from Iranian officials in state media about the situation of the three Kurdish activists.

“We ask of whoever is listening, do not leave us alone at this crucial moment,” Amjad Hossein Panahi said, as he concluded the video message. “Defend Zaniar, Loghman and Ramin. Your efforts could lead to a stay of execution.”
Iran's judiciary executes three Iranian Kurdish prisoners, including Ramin Panahi, for terrorism offences. Two United Nations special rapporteurs condemn the executions and Amnesty International alleges their trials were unfair, due to the denial of legal counsel and confessions obtained through torture.