You are invited to a special (online) event on May 10th, 2025 at 12:30 EST (10:30am in Saskatchewan):

Register at: https://www.paivand-society.ca/tadp-session4

Our series has looked into the nature of the death penalty, how and why it is used, how and why it violates our most fundamental right to life, how and why the global campaign to abolish the death penalty has had remarkable success.

Eight countries out of 99 were abolitionist in 1945. By 1972 that number was 14. Today it is 113. Plus the 23 retentionist countries that haven’t implemented the death penalty for over ten years. Plus 9 other retentionist countries that use the death penalty only for ‘committed under exceptional circumstances.’
 
Even so, Ezat Mossallanejad, one of our April 12 panelists, urges that we restrain our celebrations. ‘Abolition’ in law or practice is no guarantee that people in some countries are not being killed by other means. Our abolitionist efforts must go a step beyond abolition. We must demand that everyone with any involvement in any political deaths must be held accountable to their actions. No-one can be immune to the rule of law.    
 
On May 10 we will hear about the many ways regimes can circumvent ‘legal’ processes in order to kill people they don’t like. We’ve read about these things for as long as we have been alive. Argentina’s military junta (1976 – 1983), Pinochet’s Chile, (1973 – 1990), Mao’s China (1949 – 1976), Ceaușescu’s Romania (1967 – 1989), Putin’s Russia (1999 – present) are just a few examples of which hundreds of thousands of people were killed by government-aligned security forces, were victims of targeted assassinations, or perished during a police check or in police custody or from injuries sustained under torture, or as a result of psychological trauma, or being denied food, water, vital health care, while in prison, or simply ‘disappeared’.
 

Our Panel

 Hamed Esmaeilion lost his family when Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was shot down by surface-to-air missiles by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shortly after taking off from Tehran January 8, 2020. For three years he campaigned for the Islamic Regime to fess up to its crime. This included testifying to Parliamentary committees about the many ways Iranian activists are threatened, harassed, doxxed, monitored, and assassinated by agents of Iran. He resigned as president of ‘The Association of Families of Fight PS752 Victims in 2023 to give more time rallying support for the ‘Women. Life. Freedom’ movement, organizing global rallies, writing, film-making, and speaking to the public on behalf of Iran’s vast diaspora.
 

Parastou Forouhar is an artist and activist. She lives in Frankfurt Germany. Her prolific multi-media output involves themes of protest, criticism and exposure of the politics and violence of Islamic fundamentalism. Her work uses cultural motifs taken from traditional Iranian calligraphy and Persian miniature painting. The everyday brutality of life in Iran is depicted in the details within the fabrics, photography, digital drawings, multi-media installations. Horrors happening within the shape of a butterfly. Her book Parastou Forouhar tells her story. http:// https://www.parastou-forouhar.de/

Hilary Homes is Amnesty Canada (English Section) Crisis Response and Tactical Campaigner. Hilary’s work encompasses every form of political violence used against political opponents, journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders, land defenders, social activists, academics, refugees and migrants, and ordinary civilians in places like Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Gaza.

Our moderator Samira Mohyeddin has a Master of Arts in Modern Middle Eastern History and Gender from the University of Toronto and Genocide Studies from the Zoryan Institute. She is the inaugural 2024 / 2025 Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Women and Gender Studies Institute. Samira is an award-winning journalist and producer. For nearly ten years she was a producer and host at CBC Radio and CBC Podcasts. She resigned in November of 2023 and founded ‘On The Line Media’.

This is the 4th in a 10-part series. If you missed the previous online event you can watch the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/inlwlKe-naI?si=xCsg75AWaLM2cjlN

Partners

Amnesty International Canada | English Speaking https://amnesty.ca/
Carleton University Youth & Justice Lab https://carleton.ca/law/youthandjusticelab/
The Human Rights Research and Education Centre https://www.uottawa.ca/research-innovation/hrrec
The Canadian International Council | Saskatchewan Branch https://thecic.org/saskatoon/
The Mardom Foundation https://mardomfoundation.org/
The Paivand Society https://www.paivand-society.ca/

This Series is Presented by ‘United Against Executions in Iran/Unis contre les exécutions en Iran’
 We are a network of Iranian-Canadian and Amnesty Canada groups and supporters. Our goal is the abolition of the death penalty in Iran. Our methods include public education initiatives, advocating non-partisan conversations in Parliament, urging more effective actions by the Government of Canada, joining forces with networks like ours in North America and beyond, and persuading local organizations to speak out – to act out – on this urgent issue.

Ending executions in Iran will be a giant step in abolishing the death penalty everywhere.