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A year ago, The Washington Times helped bring the world's attention to the plight of Farzad Kamangar, a Kurdish school-

teacher wrongly accused of being a terrorist by the Islamic regime in Tehran. He spent almost four years of physical and mental torture in Iran's prison system. Mr. Kamangar's suffering ceased Sunday at the end of a hangman's noose. He was 34 years old.

Mr. Kamangar was killed along with four other "moharebs" or "enemies of God," whom the regime said were "convicted of carrying out terrorist acts." Three of the cases were still undergoing mandatory review when the executions were rushed through. Phone connections to Tehran's infamous Evin Prison were cut over the weekend while the executions were prepared and carried out. The regime did not notify the families or defense attorneys of the condemned in advance, as required by law - they learned of the execution from a press release. For a regime that claims to be the instrument of God, it behaved more like a criminal cabal with something to hide.

Mr. Kamangar's crime was being a Kurd. He taught at an elementary school in the northwestern Iranian city of Kamyaran, where he was a member of the Kurdistan Teachers Union and wrote for various underground human rights publications. He secretly taught his Kurdish students their banned language and told stories about their culture and history. He was arrested in July 2006 and subjected to beatings, whippings, electric shocks, malnourishment, s... >>>