26 human rights organizations have called on the Iranian judiciary to overturn the death sentence against Pakhshan Azizi.

In a statement, the signatory NGOs said they strongly condemned the regime's decision to uphold the death sentence against the Kurdish woman. Iran must refrain from executing the death penalty and release Azizi unconditionally.

Pakhshan Azizi is a social worker and also worked as a journalist. In August last year, she was arrested in Tehran by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and was severely tortured both physically and psychologically for weeks. She is currently in the notorious Evin prison. In July, a court in Iran's capital sentenced Azizi to death by hanging for "armed rebellion against the system."

She was accused, without evidence, of being a member of the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK). She herself denies the accusation as baseless and speaks of a political verdict. Trials in Iran are systematically unfair because prisoners are denied the right to due process, including access to legal counsel, and "confessions" extracted through torture are usually used as evidence for their conviction.

Pakhshan Azizi studied social work at Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, where she was first arrested in November 2009. She was accused of taking part in student protests against the execution of Kurdish political prisoners. She was released on bail in March 2010.

She later left Iran and lived for several years in the autonomous region of northern and eastern Syria and in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. During the attack by the Islamic State on Rojava, she worked as a social worker for refugees in the region.