U.S. outraged over execution of Jewish woman and her Armenian husband in Iran

PanARMENIAN.Net - A Jewish woman and her Armenian Christian husband were executed in Iran for undisclosed reasons, a top U.S. State Department official said.

Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state for human rights, testified Wednesday, May 11, 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."

Mrs. Adiva Mirza Soleiman Kalimi, a Jewish Iranian, and her husband, Varoujan Petrosian, an Armenian Iranian along with one other woman and two men, whose identities remain unknown, were secretly executed in Evin Prison. According to the Iranian Christian News Agency Mohabat News and based on reports from the human rights activists in Iran, the 28th divisional court of the Revolutionary Court, located inside the Evin prison, in confirming this execution refused to provide any further details about the surrender of the executed bodies of the prisoners. It is still unknown what those prisoners were charged for.