The Islamic regime executes one of the detainees in the mobilizations that the country has been experiencing for three months
The Iranian regime is in a hurry to end the protests and steps forward with the first execution of a detainee in the mobilizations. From now on the protesters, who have been in the streets for three months united by the death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the Morality Police, know that the threat of hanging is real. Capital punishment comes after very quick processes before the Justice that human rights organizations denounce for the lack of guarantees. First on this execution blacklist is 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari, accused of being a “rioter” who blocked a main road in Tehran on 25 September and wounded a member of a paramilitary force with a machete.
Shekari was arrested just ten days after the start of the protests, on November 1 a court found him guilty of fighting and drawing a weapon “with the intent to kill, cause terror and disturb the order and security of society” and sentenced him to death for “enmity against God,” reported the Mizan agency, linked to the Ministry of Justice. The defendant appealed, but twenty days later the Supreme Court ratified the sentence and after another twenty they took him to the gallows.
Organizations such as Amnesty International (AI) denounced that these death sentences seek to “repress even more the popular uprising” and “instill fear among the public.” Shekari was the first of a list that may be expanded shortly, since at the moment there are another ten detainees in the protests on death row.
From the top of the judiciary, the order issued by its highest official, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, is to “issue harsh sentences” as a deterrent measure. Pressure on judges comes from the legislature as 227 members of the 290-seat Parliament signed an open letter calling for death sentences to be issued to detained protesters.
It will go to work and now we have to see the response in the streets and within the international community. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based activist group Iran Human Rights (IHR), called via social media for a “strong” international response to the execution, “otherwise we will face daily executions of protesters.” . Social networks were filled with messages of condemnation and the blogger Hossein Ronaghi addressed the authorities to state that “we will not turn a blind eye, the execution of any protester will have serious consequences. To take the life of one person is to take the life of all of us. Do you have enough space on the gallows for all of us?
moral victory
Despite the lack of leadership, the protests under the slogan “woman, life, freedom” do not cease and this week they have achieved their first moral victory with the announcement of the suspension of the patrols of the Moral Police, the body in whose dependencies Amini died on September 16. The end of the patrols, however, does not imply any change in the obligation to wear the veil, a red line since the triumph of the revolution. This victory has already cost the lives of more than 200 people, according to government data, although some human rights organizations claim that there are more than 400 victims and raise the number of detainees to thousands. Iranian Kurdistan, the area where Amini originally came from, is the epicenter of mobilizations and general strikes like the one that this week has immobilized part of the country for 72 hours.
According to AI figures, in 2021 Iran was the second country that applied the death penalty the most, only surpassed by China. Earlier this week the Tehran authorities reported the hanging of four prisoners accused of “intelligence cooperation” with Israel and “kidnapping”. Those executed were arrested in May and the Islamic Republic linked them to activities of the intelligence services of the Jewish State, which are very active inside Iran.
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