JTA Reports that A Jewish woman and her Armenian Christian husband were executed in Iran for undisclosed reasons, a top State Department official said.
Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state for human rights, testified Wednesday at a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iran's human rights.
Posner said human rights in the Islamic Republic had deteriorated in the first part of 2011. He listed as examples mass executions; the killing of protesters in Tehran and among ethnic Arabs; harsh prison sentences for Baha'i leaders; tough prison conditions for political detainees; and that "a Jewish woman and her Armenian-Christian husband were reportedly executed based on undisclosed charges."
He did not name the couple.
Update May 15, 2011
Update May 15, 2011
WASHINGTON (JTA) – The Israeli-born Jewish woman and her Armenian Christian husband reportedly executed in Iran have been identified.
The Iranian human rights group, Human Rights Activists News Agency reported that Adiva Mirza Soleyman Kalimia and Varjan Petrosian were hanged on March 14 at Evin Prison, a facility for political prisoners in northwest Iran. It identified Soleyman as Jewish and Petrosian as Armenian.
The agency quoted a Revolutionary Court as confirming the executions, along with those of three others who were unidentified. It said relatives of the dead who tried to recover the bodies for ritual burial were threatened with arrest.
The official cause of Soleyman Kalimia's arrest reportedly was adultery.
Soleyman Kalimia was born in Jerusalem in 1956 to an Iranian-Jewish family, according to reports. She was also a United States citizen, after residing in Miami for several years. She visited Iran three times in recent years before being arrested and put in prison.
Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state for human rights, had not named the couple when he testified Wednesday at a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iran's human rights that a Jewish woman and her Armenian Christian husband had been executed in Iran for undisclosed reasons.
Posner said human rights in the Islamic Republic had deteriorated in the first part of 2011. He listed as examples mass executions; the killing of protesters in Tehran and among ethnic Arabs; harsh prison sentences for Baha'i leaders; tough prison conditions for political detainees; and that "a Jewish woman and her Armenian-Christian husband were reportedly executed based on undisclosed charges."
