Three men who have been sentenced to death in Iran for their involvement in the deaths of law enforcement officers during protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini last year in the country were executed on Friday, the authority said judicial. Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi were found guilty of “moharebeh” (“war against God”) and of possessing a weapon during a demonstration in the city of Isfahan (center), indicated the site of the information agency of the judicial authority Mizan Online.
One of them was the subject of a petition
Arrested last November, the three men were sentenced to death in January. They were also found guilty of being members of “unlawful groups intending to undermine the security of the country and of collusion leading to crimes against internal security”, Mizan added. “According to the evidence and the statements of the defendants, the shooting (of a firearm) by these three people led to the martyrdom of three members of the security forces,” added Mizan Online.
Majid Kazemi, whose relatives live in Australia, had been the subject of a petition addressed to the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, asking for her support for an acquittal. “Majid is only 30 years old. He is a loving, compassionate and strong-willed person. Like many other Iranians, he participated in peaceful protests to raise his voice and demand change,” his cousin wrote. Mohammad Hashemi, in the text of the petition posted on change.org.
The country that executes the most convicts after China
Iran has been rocked by a protest movement since the September 16, 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, three days after her arrest by vice squad who accused her of breaking the strict dress code imposing to women, in particular the wearing of the veil in the Islamic Republic.
Iran executes more convicts than any other country except China, according to several human rights NGOs, including Amnesty International. On May 9, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, also denounced “the incredibly high number” of executions this year in Iran, more than ten per week on average. In 2022, 582 people suffered the death penalty, up 75% from the previous year, Iran Human Rights and another organization, Together against the death penalty (ECPM), based in Paris, reported in April.
But the pace of executions has been even more intense in 2023: the NGO Iran Human Rights, based in Norway, has counted at least 218 executions since the beginning of the year. Since January 1, at least 209 people have been executed, mostly for drug-related offences, according to the UN, which stresses that the number could be higher. “The government’s killing machine is accelerating,” IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said on May 10: “Its purpose is to intimidate the people, and its victims are the weakest people in society. .”