Habib Chaab had been sentenced to death for “terrorism” after being accused of being the leader of an Arab separatist group in the west of the country.
Iran on Saturday executed Iranian-Swedish dissident Habib Chaab, sentenced to death for “terrorism” after being accused of being the leader of an Arab separatist group in the west of the country.
The justice had confirmed his death sentence on March 12, a decision condemned by Sweden. “The death penalty is an inhuman punishment (…) and Sweden, like the rest of the EU, condemns its application in all circumstances,” said Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom.
“The death sentence of Habib Chaab (…) at the head of the terrorist group Harakat al-Nidal, was carried out today this morning”, announced the agency of the judicial authority Mizan Online on Saturday. Executions are usually carried out in Iran by hanging at dawn.
582 hangings in 2022
Iran is the country executing the most people after China, according to human rights organisations, which put the number of hangings at 582 in 2022.
Aged about fifty, Habib Chaab, also known as Habib Asyud, is presented as the leader of the Harakat al-Nidal group, or ASMLA (Arab Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz) by the authorities. Iranians who qualify this movement as “terrorist”.
He had disappeared in October 2020 after going to Istanbul, before reappearing a month later in prison in Iran.
In December 2020, the Turkish authorities announced the arrest of 11 people suspected of having kidnapped him in Istanbul before taking him to Van, on the Iranian border, and handing him over to the authorities in Tehran.
A “confession” video
Iranian television broadcast a video of Habib Chaab in November 2020, in which he accused himself in particular of a deadly attack which targeted a military parade in September 2018 in Ahvaz, capital of the province of Khuzestan (southwest) , and to work for the Saudi intelligence services.
The dissemination of such videos is common in Iran and condemned by human rights defenders, who accuse the authorities of obtaining them through torture.
The population of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan has a large Arab minority, which complains of being left behind by the authorities. Khuzestan had been one of the hotspots of a wave of protest at the end of 2019, which was violently repressed.
Last March, the justice sentenced to death six men accused of being part of the ASMLA, accusing them of having “following the orders of their European leaders, like (…) Habib Chaab”.
