Iran hanged five people accused of "anti-revolutionary" acts, including "moharebe" or waging war against God, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday; meanwhile a senior diplomat at Iran’s embassy in Finland resigned to join political opposition.
Farzad Kamangar, Ali Haydarian, Farhad Vakili and Shirin Alam-Houli were members of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which took up arms in 1984 for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey and northwest Iran, IRNA said.
The other man executed, Mehdi Eslamian, was involved in a mosque bombing in the central city of Shiraz in 2008 that killed 14 people, IRNA said.
"The five, including one woman, were hanged inside Tehran’s Evin prison on Sunday morning … They confessed carrying out deadly terrorist operations in the country in the past years," IRNA said.
Iran sees PJAK, which seeks autonomy for Kurdish areas in Iran and shelters in Iraq’s northeastern border provinces, as a terrorist group.
In recent years, Iranian forces have often clashed with PJAK guerrillas, who operate out of bases in northern Iraq. Kurds are large minorities in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
The five who were executed were convicted in 2008. They were hanged after a Supreme Court upheld their death sentences.
IRNA said three of them were founders of PJAK group in Iran.
"Kamangar, Heidarian and Vakili started their armed activities to overthrow the Islamic establishment in 2003 by creating PJAK group in Iran," IRNA said, quoting their indictment.
IRNA said Alam-Houli confessed to links with PJAK and that she had received orders from the group to carry out "terrorist" acts to create instability in Iran.
"She was arrested when trying to plant a bomb underneath a vehicle near the Guards’ headquarters in Tehran," it said.
Senior official resigns
Meanwhile, a senior official at the Iranian embassy in Finland said Saturday that he has resigned from his post to join the political opposition against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"I’ve made this decision on my own and I’m very decided," the embassy’s second-in-charge, Hossein Alizadeh, 45, told AFP.
Alizadeh handed in his resignation four days ago, saying his decision dated back to 2009’s "unfair elections" when "Ahmadinejad was imposed on Iranians."
"He is a profound danger for all… very dangerous not only for the world and the region, but also for Iranians," Alizadeh said, adding that a majority of Iranian diplomats are against the regime.
He remained tight-lipped about whether he would seek political asylum in Finland, but said he was "terribly afraid" and that he had received threats via email.
Married with three children, Alizadeh worked for Iran’s foreign ministry for 21 years including stints in Bulgaria and Egypt.
He is the second Iranian diplomat to resign in the Nordic region after the departure of Mohamed Rez Heydari from the Oslo embassy last January.