December 12, 2022
Iran publicly executed a protester in the northeastern city of Mashhad on Monday, a chilling warning to those still participating in the anti-government demonstrations that have swept the country for nearly three months.
Majid Reza Rahnavard, 23, was hanged from a construction crane. A video of the execution spreading across social media shows his suspended body, dressed in white with his hands bound behind him, slowly spinning in the predawn dark as a crowd gathers around.
Rahnavard was convicted of fatally stabbing two members of Iran’s security forces with a knife on Nov. 17, according to Mizan, the official news site of the judiciary. The site published a photo of men in black ski masks at the execution site.
Rahnavard is the second protester to be executed in the past week, and the first to have his body displayed publicly, as the government seeks to crush a national uprising that challenges its rule. Mohsen Shekari, accused of injuring a member of the security forces, was executed on Thursday.
The protests that started after the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini in mid-September in the custody of the “morality police” have become a broad-based movement uniting opponents of clerical rule across class and ethnic lines.
Iran’s regime at an impasse as protest movement defies crackdown
Nearly 500 civilians have been killed and some 18,000 arrested in the unrest, according to estimates by the HRANA activist news agency, but restrictions on reporting make exact numbers difficult to verify. At least 16 people have been given death sentences for their role in the protests, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran, based in New York.
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said Monday that the European Union will approve a new round of sanctions against Iran.
“Iran has to understand that the European Union will condemn strongly and will take any action we can in order to support Iranian women, to support peaceful demonstrators and, certainly, reject the death penalty,” Borrell said.
A video from Rahnavard’s gravesite shows a handful of women wailing, with one saying “May God curse you” to his executioners.
Rahnavard’s family was not informed about his pending execution, according to 1500 Tasvir, an anti-government group that monitors the demonstrations. His mother visited him in prison recently and she “left smiling and hoping that her son would be released soon,” the group wrote in an online post.
Political prisoners such as Rahnavard are typically tried in revolutionary courts, a parallel legal system that is stacked against the accused. During his trial, Rahnavard confessed to the stabbings, and a video of the alleged incident was shown by the prosecution.
But such trials often rely on fabricated evidence, and defendants are frequently tortured or forced into making confessions and incriminating statements, as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have repeatedly documented.
“The public execution of a young protester, 23 days after his arrest, is another serious crime committed by the Islamic Republic leaders and a significant escalation of the level of violence against protesters,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights. “Majidreza Rahnavard was sentenced to death based on coerced confessions, after a grossly unfair process and a show trial.”
Iran publicly carries out second protest-related execution
Iran has signalled more executions could be carried out amid condemnation by rights groups.
December 12, 2022
Tehran, Iran – Iran has publicly executed a second man who was arrested during unrest linked with the country’s ongoing protests.
The judiciary’s news website announced early on Monday that Majidreza Rahnavard, who was convicted of killing two members of security forces, was executed in an unidentified public location in Mashhad while a group of people looked on.
It published several images of the public execution, showing a man, whose hands were tied, hanged by the neck from a crane. Masked security forces were shown cordoning off the area, with a crowd of dozens watching behind barricades.
Iran executed the first detainee linked with the protests, a 23-year-old named Mohsen Shekari, on Thursday for allegedly attacking and wounding a member of the Basij paramilitary force with a long knife in central Tehran.
Like the case of Shekari, Monday’s execution aimed to show the speed with which the Iranian judiciary is advancing cases related to the protests, as Rahnavard was executed less than a month after his arrest.
The judiciary claimed Rahnavard carried out a “terrorist” act against two Basij members on November 17. He was reportedly arrested two days later for “waging war against God”.
State television carried footage that showed a man standing over and stabbing a man who had fallen to the ground next to a parked motorcycle.
Another man charges the assailant and is also stabbed before the attacker flees. The judiciary said the assailant was Rahnavard, who was alleged to have also injured another four people while fleeing.
After the execution, Gholamali Sadeghi, the judiciary chief of the northeastern Razavi Khorasan, thanked police, security and judiciary officials for carrying out the sentence as soon as possible, and for “answering public demands for establishing order and security and dealing with rioters and law-breakers”.
Appearing on state television late on Saturday, judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi defended Shekari’s execution on Thursday.
Anyone who uses a “cold or warm weapon with the intent of harming the life, possessions or family of people or to terrorise them” could be convicted of moharebeh – or “waging war against God” – which carries the death penalty, he warned.
Iran’s protests began in mid-September after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was arrested by the country’s morality police for allegedly not adhering to a mandatory dress code.
Foreign-based human rights organisations have said more than 450 people have been killed during the protests, which is higher than the death toll of 200 provided by Iran, which denies its security forces fire on protesters.
Rights groups have warned more people arrested in connection with the protests could be executed soon.
‘Instil fear’
The death sentence of Mahan Sadrat Madani, a 22-year-old man convicted of “waging war against God”, has been temporarily suspended, but there has been no confirmation of its termination.
After Shekari’s execution, Amnesty International condemned the move and said “the clear aim of Iranian authorities is to instil fear among the public in a desperate attempt to cling to power and end the popular uprising”.
The UN Human Rights Council last month voted to establish a fact-finding mission to investigate Iran’s handling of the protests, but Tehran said it would not cooperate with the mission because of its “political” nature.
There will be a vote on Wednesday to expel Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which UN Watch has predicted will pass overwhelmingly amid objections by Tehran.
In the past few days, Australia and New Zealand joined the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada in blacklisting a number of Iranian officials and entities for their response to the protests, something Tehran condemned.
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