Global Courant 2023-05-19 12:33:52
Iran executed three men on Friday over recent protests, the country’s judiciary said on Twitter.
Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi were executed in the central city of Isfahan, it said.
They were implicated in the deaths of two members of the Basij paramilitary force and a law enforcement official in November during nationwide protests.
Rights groups say the three were tortured, coerced into televised confessions and not given a fair trial.
The protests erupted last September after the death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by the country’s vice squad for allegedly violating strict Islamic dress codes.
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The demonstrations quickly escalated into calls for the overthrow of the theocracy that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Demonstrations have largely subsided in recent months, although sporadic acts of defiance remain, including the refusal of a growing number of women to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf required by law in Iran.
Prisoners tortured, human rights organizations say
Iran has executed a total of seven people in connection with the protests. Rights groups say they and several others sentenced to death have been sentenced by secret state security courts and denied the right to defend themselves.
“The prosecution relied on coerced ‘confessions’ and the indictment was riddled with irregularities revealing that this was a politically motivated case,” Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, said of the three performed Friday.
The group said Kazemi called a relative and accused authorities of torturing him by flogging his feet, using a stun gun and threatening him with assault.
London-based Amnesty International also criticized the cases.
‘Don’t Let Them Kill Us’
“The shocking way in which the trial and sentencing of these protesters was accelerated through the Iranian justice system amid the use of torture-tainted ‘confessions’, serious procedural errors and a lack of evidence is another example of the brutal contempt of the Iranian authorities.” for the right to life and due process,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
The US State Department on Thursday called on Iran not to carry out the executions of the three men.
The three men had appealed to the public for support on Wednesday in a handwritten note that read, “Don’t let them kill us.”
