The Iranian authorities hanged a 23-year-old prisoner on Thursday, the primary execution it has introduced of an individual accused of involvement within the protests which have engulfed the nation for the previous three months. He was one in every of 11 protesters who’ve to this point been sentenced to loss of life.
The person, Mohsen Shekari, was accused of blocking a road in Tehran and of attacking a member of the Basij militia with a machete, forcing him to get 13 stitches after a protest, in keeping with the Mizan information company, which is overseen by the nation’s judiciary.
Mr. Shekari was arrested on Sept. 25, and sentenced on Nov. 20 by Iran’s Revolutionary Court docket, a particular court docket for political circumstances and political prisoners, the company mentioned. He was accused of “moharebeh,” or waging struggle in opposition to God, a cost that carries an automated loss of life sentence.
His execution — together with the velocity with which it occurred after his sentencing — was taken as a transparent sign that the federal government was escalating its efforts to intimidate protesters calling for an finish to the system of authoritarian clerical rule that has been in place since 1979.
“Iranian authorities have executed a protester, sentenced to loss of life in present trials with none due course of,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based activist group, wrote on Twitter. He mentioned that the execution must be met with “STRONG reactions” from the worldwide neighborhood, and that “in any other case we will probably be dealing with each day executions of protesters.”
Sanam Vakil, the deputy director of the Center East and North Africa program at Chatham Home, a London analysis institute, mentioned Iran’s leaders had been sending a really direct message. “This might signify the apogee of its toleration,” she mentioned. “Up till now the system sees itself as having proven restraint, however this execution might be the tip level to that.”
Extra on the Protests in Iran
- A Ladies-Led Rebellion: Putting off their legally required head scarves, Iranian girls have been on the forefront of the demonstrations.
- Present of Assist: From World Cup soccer gamers to film personalities, high-profile Iranians are more and more making public gestures of assist for the protests.
- Suppressing Protests: Witness accounts and a Occasions video evaluation reveal how Iran’s safety forces are co-opting ambulances to infiltrate demonstrations and detain protesters.
- Struck Blind: Throughout Iran, a whole lot of protesters have suffered extreme eye accidents inflicted by the metallic pellets and rubber bullets that safety forces hearth to disperse crowds.
Iran’s police chief, Hossein Ashtari, mentioned on Thursday that “the police is not going to present restraint in coping with safety threats,” in keeping with ISNA, the Iranian pupil information company.
A closely edited six-minute video, posted by Mizan after the execution, reveals Mr. Shekari strolling down a hallway with what gave the impression to be a limp. In excerpts from his testimony, he’s seen holding a cigarette or wielding a knife, re-enacting his assault. In line with the Mizan report, Mr. Shekari admitted to blocking an intersection within the Sattar Khan neighborhood in Tehran with a companion, named Ali, who handed him the machete and supplied him cash if he stabbed a safety officer.
It was not potential to independently confirm the official account of the incident.
Sharyar, a protester who was held in jail earlier than being launched, mentioned in a series of tweets that he had met Mr. Shekari throughout his incarceration. “Mohsen Shekari liked life — he was ready for his freedom,” he wrote, describing his fellow inmate as a “quiet younger man” who had been working at a restaurant in Tehran when he determined to affix the protests. Mr. Shekari had hoped that his harsh sentence could be softened to 10 years in jail, Sharyar mentioned.
Activists, attorneys and odd Iranians instantly took to social media to sentence the execution, saying Mr. Shekari was denied his entry to a lawyer by way of his interrogations and authorized proceedings. Outstanding Iranian athletes and celebrities additionally denounced the federal government’s use of the loss of life sentence.
Navid Mohammadzadeh, a widely known actor in Iran, mentioned in an Instagram publish that tagged Mr. Shekari’s identify, “Nothing washes off blood.”
“Your silence means supporting oppression and oppressors,” a famend Iranian actress, Taraneh Alidoosti, wrote in a publish, urging others to talk out.
Mr. Shekari’s loss of life drew swift condemnation from rights teams and authorities officers across the globe.
“The Iranian regime’s contempt for humanity is limitless,” mentioned Germany’s international minister, Annalena Baerbock, in a tweet. “However the specter of execution is not going to stifle folks’s will for freedom.”
One of many European Parliament’s vice presidents, Pina Picierno, known as the hanging “the primary insane loss of life sentence carried out on a protester in Iran.”
Amnesty Worldwide said it was “horrified” on the execution, saying it got here lower than three weeks after “a grossly unfair sham trial,” and known as on the federal government to “cease utilizing the loss of life penalty as software of political repression in opposition to protesters of their determined try to finish the favored rebellion.”
Greater than 18,000 folks have been arrested within the protests, in keeping with rights teams. Many have been tried by the Revolutionary Court docket on “moharebeh” prices.
The court docket is thought for holding closed-door trials and obstructing the correct to a good trial by not permitting defendants to decide on attorneys or by withholding proof, rights teams say.
“Most are charged in revolutionary courts that lack legitimacy and are disadvantaged of their proper to authorized illustration,” Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer and former prisoner, wrote on Fb on Tuesday.
Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty Worldwide’s deputy director for the Center East and North Africa, wrote in a report final month that 21 folks had been susceptible to receiving loss of life sentences over the protests.
“Two months into the favored rebellion and three years on from the November 2019 protests, the disaster of impunity prevailing in Iran is enabling the Iranian authorities to not solely proceed finishing up mass killings, but additionally to escalate the usage of the loss of life penalty as a software of political repression,” Ms. Eltahawy mentioned within the report.
A parliamentary assertion cited by Amnesty, signed by 227 Iranian lawmakers, known as on the judiciary to “present no leniency” to protesters by slamming them with swift loss of life sentences as “a lesson” to others. The pinnacle of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, who has repeatedly known as for fast trials and sentences, confirmed on Monday that the trials had been being handled “in a really quick time frame,” in keeping with Mizan.
The execution of Mr. Shekari introduced an ominous shut to 3 days of nationwide strikes, one of many largest demonstrations of mass protest in Iran in many years, in an indication of intensifying strain on the federal government. Within the Kurdish metropolis of Sanandaj, a 21-year-old protester, Houman Abdullahi, was killed late Wednesday by safety forces, in keeping with the rights group Hengaw.
Mr. Shekari’s loss of life additionally got here days after Legal professional Basic Mohammad Javad Montazeri mentioned the nation’s feared morality police had been “abolished,” in keeping with the state information media — a transfer that has been neither confirmed nor denied by the federal government.
Iran has ranked as one of many world’s most frequent customers of the loss of life penalty for years. In July, Amnesty Worldwide mentioned the Iranian authorities had been believed to have killed not less than 251 folks within the first six months of 2022 — the equal of multiple a day. Rights teams put the toll a lot increased, saying it had now surpassed 500, “the very best fee in 5 years.”