Human rights groups warned on Sunday that several protesters in Iran are at imminent risk of execution, following an international backlash against the clerical regime’s first hanging linked to the ongoing demonstrations.
The almost three-month-long protest movement was sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish girl detained by morality police for allegedly breaking the strict dress code for women in the islamic republic.
The marches, described as “riots” by the authorities, represent the biggest challenge to the regime since the removal of the shah in 1979. They have been responded with a repression that, according to the activists, is intended to instill fear in the population.
On Thursday, Iran executed 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari, convicted of attacking a member of the security forces. Human rights groups claimed that he had submitted to a rigged trial marked by excessive haste.
Iran’s judiciary says it has so far sentenced 11 people to death in connection with the protests, but activists say around a dozen more face charges that could carry the death penalty.
Unless foreign governments “significantly increase” the diplomatic and economic costs for Iran, the world “is giving the green light to this carnage,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Iran-based Center for Human Rights (CHRI). New York.
Amnesty International said Iran was “preparing to execute” 22-year-old Mahan Sadrat, just a month after his “grossly unfair” trial. He was found guilty of drawing a knife at the protests, a charge he flatly denied in court.
On Saturday, Sadrat was transferred from Tehran Grand Prison to Rajai Shahr Prison in the nearby town of Karaj, “raising fears that his execution is imminent,” Amnesty said.
trial show
“Like all other death row inmates, he was denied all access to his lawyer during interrogations, proceedings and the show trial,” Oslo-based Iran Human Rights said.
Amnesty warned that the life of another young man detained by the protests, Sahand Nourmohammadzadeh, was also at risk “after an accelerated procedure that did not resemble a trial”.
Sahand Nourmohammadzadeh was sentenced to death in November on charges of “knocking down highway guardrails and setting rubbish bins and tires on fire”.
Among those sentenced to the same penalty is rapper Saman Seyedi, 24, who belongs to Iran’s Kurdish minority. His mother advocated for his life on social media in a video in which she stated “my son is an artist, not a troublemaker.”
Another dissident rapper, Toomaj Salehi, who has voiced support for the anti-regime protests, is accused of “corruption on earth” and faces the death penalty, Iranian judicial authorities confirmed last month.
“We fear for the lives of the Iranian artists who have been indicted on charges carrying the death penalty,” the United Nations experts said in a statement, referring to the cases of Sayedi and Salehi.
Amnesty and the IHR have also raised the case of Hamid Gharehasanlou, a doctor sentenced to death. They claim that he was tortured in custody and that his wife was coerced into testifying against him, something he later tried to retract.
boundless contempt
“Executions of protesters can only be prevented by raising their political cost for the Islamic republic,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, calling for an international response “more energetic than ever.”
The United States, members of the European Union and the United Kingdom strongly condemned Shekari’s execution. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said she showed “unlimited contempt for human life.”
Iran again summoned the German and British ambassadors on Friday and Saturday to protest their countries’ actions, marking the 15th time in less than three months that Tehran has summoned foreign envoys for consultations.
Many activists want the foreign response to go further, even going as far as breaking off diplomatic relations with Iran.
Following widespread international outrage over Shekari’s execution, Iran declared that it was exercising restraint, both in the response of security forces and in the “proportionality” of the judicial process.
The use of the death penalty in Iran is part of a repressive campaign in which, according to the IHR, security forces have killed at least 458 people.
According to the UN, at least 14,000 have been detained.
Meanwhile, two actors and a theater director arrested in November for recording a video supporting the protest movement have been released on bail, local media reported.
“Theater director Hamid Pourazari and actresses Soheila Golestani and Faezeh Aeen were released on Sunday night,” the ISNA news agency said.
*With AFP; adapted from its English version
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