This month marks the second anniversay of the execution of Delara Darabi, who was executed by the Terrorist Regime occuoying Iran. Darabi a talented artist in her own right continued to paint in prison despite being on death row for five years ever since her conviction at 17. The circumstances surrounding Darabi’s imprisonment and execution concerns the murder of her wealthy relative. In circumstances echoing the trial of Shahla Jahed, the temporary wife of Iranian footballer Nasser Moahamdkhani, Delara originally confessed to the murder after pressure from her boyfriend, who was widely believed to have committed the murder. Her boyfriend only known to the media as ‘Amir Hussein’ had convinced Delara that if she were to take responsiblity for the murder she would not be convicted because of her age and that her own family will never ask for qisas (eye-for an eye retribution) for the murder of one of their own relatives. Delara revealed that her boyfriend had attempted to steal from her relative’s house but the plan went astray when her relative was alerted to Amir Hussein’s presence and attempted to stop him.
As with typically horrendous judicial criminal trials, there was no crime scene investigation report to search for fingerprints or the murder weapon. There was no pathologist report to confirm whether the Delara could have committed the murder. Her flawed trial and conviction was based on a confession under undue infuence from her adult boyfriend. An international campaign was launched and calls on the Terrorist Regime to grant clemency but they were ignored.Accordign to Amnesty International ath the time of her execution, “Amnesty International does not consider her trial to have been fair, as the courts later refused to consider new evidence which the lawyer said would have proved she could not have committed the murder,”
Even if the unliekly scenario that Delara was indeed a murderer, the Terrorist Regime has once again flouted international law by executing jouveniles for crimes they had commited before the age of majority contrary to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which the Terror Regime is a signatory of. The Islamic Shia Terror Fascist regime occupying Tehran is notorious for keeping minors on death row until they reach the age of eighteen before carrying out their execution. According to Amnesty International 42 jouvenile offenders have been executed this way since 1990.
Her haunting and evocative paintings- many of them surreal often expressed her emotional journey in prison and her innocence. Of her paintings she said, ” “The paintings in front of you are not wordless images and colours, they are the painful photo realities of our life,” she writes in a stream of consciousness message pinned to the gallery wall.
“The only face I see in front of me every day is a wall. For three years, I have been defending myself with colours, forms and words. These paintings are an oath to a crime I did not commit. Unless the colours bring me back to life, I greet you who have come to view my paintings from behind that wall.” Delara was subjected to repeated abuse by her prison guards who also confiscated her painting materials driving her to a failed suicude attempt.
Delara was executed in Rasht prison and according to Mohammad Mostafei, an Iranian lawyer campaigning against the death penalty, her family were only given 48 hours notice of the decision to execute her. Before the dawn of her execution her mother reported that Dalara made her last telephone call telling her mother in despair telling her that she could see the gallows in the distance. ‘Oh mother I can see the noose’ The telephone handset was taken from a prison guard who told her mother that the exection was going ahead and there was nothing anyone could do about it,
Dalara’s extraordinary paintings can be seen here:
If you have time please also see this wonderful documentary on Delara’s short life robbed by her by an Islamic Shia Fascist Terror Regime:
