Dutch woman feared hanged in Iran after jail term for election protest

THE Dutch foreign minister summoned Iran's ambassador yesterday over reports that a Dutch-Iranian woman detained after participating in protests against Iran's disputed presidential election in 2009 was hanged.

The foreign ministry was not immediately able to independently confirm reports in Iran that Zahra Bahrami, 45, had been executed, ministry spokesman Bengt van Loosdrecht said.

Iranian state television reported she was hanged yesterday for possessing and selling drugs. The report said that initially Bahrami was arrested for committing "security crimes," but it did not say what became of that case.

Protesters took to the streets in 2009 after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re- election, saying the vote was marred by fraud and that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was the rightful winner.

Bahrami had been jailed in Iran since December 2009. Dutch diplomats were denied access to her because Iran refused to recognise her Dutch nationality.

The Dutch government reportedly hired lawyers to defend her.

Bahrami was born in Iran, but gained Dutch citizenship after moving to the Netherlands.

The Iranian report by Mehr news agency said that initially she was arrested for committing "security crimes," but it did not say what became of that case.

"A woman smuggler named Zahra Bahrami, daughter of Ali, has been hanged today for the possession and selling of narcotics," Mehr reported, quoting the court.

Bahrami's daughter was quoted by the New York-based rights group International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran as saying that the drug charges were fabricated.

Mehr reported that she had been found guilty of smuggling cocaine into Iran from the Netherlands and was found with 450 grams of the drug in her possession.

Bahrami, who according to the International Campaign for Human Rights, lived in London but visited her family in Iran, took part in opposition demonstrations marking the Shi'ite Muslim festival of Ashura in December 2009.

That was six months after the disputed re-election of hardliner Ahmadinejad, which was followed by the biggest street protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The government stamped out the protests, which it says were the work of foreign-backed seditionists. Thousands of people were detained after the election. Most of them have since been freed, but more than 80 people have been jailed for up to 15 years and at least five have been sentenced to death.

As in the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman whose sentence to death by stoning was suspended after an international outcry, Iranian authorities accused foreign governments of trying to interfere in judicial proceedings.