Iran Executes Poet for ‘Waging War on God’

Rouhani approves execution of Arab–Iranian poet

Hashem Shaabani was hanged in an unidentified prison last Monday

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrives to meet with members of a group of ex-global leaders known as the Elders, in Tehran on January 28, 2014. (AFP PHOTO/BEHROUZ MEHRI)

London, Asharq Al-Awsat—Last month, Hassan Rouhani, the new President of Iran, made a whirlwind visit to Ahvaz, capital of the southwestern province of Khuzestan. According to official media, Rouhani spent much of his time there dealing with “a number of sensitive files” left undecided by the outgoing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

One such file concerns 14 human rights activists who had been in prison for up to two years. When Rouhani took over as president he had them moved from the Karoun Prison in Ahvaz to an unknown destination. There, last July, an Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal with a single judge, Ayatollah Muhammad-Baqer Mussavi, sentenced the 14 to death on charges of “waging war on God” and “spreading corruption on earth” and “questioning the principle of velayat-e faqih” (the guardianship of the jurist). Before he left Ahvaz, Rouhani gave his green light for the executions. The first two executions were carried out last Monday when Hashem Shaabani and Hadi Rashedi were hanged in an unidentified prison.
Both men were well known in human rights circles across Iran and had a long record of advocating greater cultural freedoms for Iran’s ethnic Arab-speaking minority, believed to number almost two million.

Shaabani, aged 32, was especially known in cultural circles because of the poetry he published both in Persian and Arabic. He was also a founder of the Dialogue Institute that aimed at promoting a better understanding of Arabic literature and culture among Iranians. The institute offered Arabic language classes for a nominal fee and helped with the translation of modern Persian poems into Arabic and vice-versa.
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