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TEHERAN – Iran executed three men accused of committing deadly violence during last year’s anti-government protests. Dead execusion it was carried out on Friday (19/5/2023), despite objections from human rights groups (HAM).
Mizan, the Iranian Judiciary website announced the executions of Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi, without saying how the executions were carried out. Authorities say they killed a police officer and two members of the Basij paramilitary group in Isfahan in November during nationwide protests.
As reported by the AP, human rights groups said the three were subjected to torture, forced to confess on television, and resisted legal proceedings. To date, Iran has executed a total of seven people in connection with the protests.
The protests erupted last September after the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by the state morality police for allegedly breaking the strict Islamic dress code. The demonstrations quickly escalated into calls to overthrow the theocracy that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The demonstrations have largely died down in recent months, although there are still sporadic acts of defiance, including a growing number of women refusing to wear the mandatory headscarf, known as the hijab.
Rights groups say they and several others who have been sentenced to death were convicted by a secret state security court and denied the right to defend themselves.
“The prosecution relied on coerced ‘confessions’, and the indictment is full of irregularities which reveal that this is a politically motivated case,” Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, said of the three. executed on Friday.
The group said Kazemi had called a relative and accused authorities of torturing him by whipping his legs, using a stun gun and threatening him with sexual assault.
