Iran has executed three men who were accused of deadly violence during an anti-government protests in 2022.
Despite objections from human rights groups, Mizan, the judiciary’s website, announced the executions of Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Saeed Yaghoubi, without mentioning how they were carried out.
They were accused of killing a police officer and two members of the paramilitary Basij group in Isfahan in November 2022, during nationwide protests but Rights groups have said the three men were subjected to torture, forced into televised confessions and denied due process.
The protests which erupted in September 2022 came after the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly violating its strict Islamic dress code.
Seven people have been executed in connection with the protests as Rights groups disclosed that they and several others who have been sentenced to death were convicted by secretive state security courts and denied the right to defend themselves.
“The prosecution relied on forced confessions, and the indictment was riddled with irregularities that reveal this was a politically motivated case,” the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, Hadi Ghaemi, said.
The group said Kazemi had called a relative and accused authorities of torturing him by flogging his feet, using a stun gun and threatening him with sexual assault.
Amnesty International based in the UK through the deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, Diana Eltahawy, also criticized the cases, saying: “The shocking manner in which the trial and sentencing of these protesters was fast-tracked through Iran’s judicial system amid the use of torture-tainted confessions, serious procedural flaws and a lack of evidence is another example of the Iranian authorities’ brazen disregard for the rights to life and fair trial.”
Robert Malley, the United States (US) envoy for Iran, had spoken out against the imminent execution of the three men, calling it an affront to the human rights and basic dignity of all Iranians that showed the government has learned nothing from the protests.
“The United States will continue to stand with the Iranian people. We are coordinating closely with our allies and partners to expose and confront the Iranian regime’s unremitting human rights abuses,” Malley said.
Over 500 people were killed during months of protests, including dozens of members of the security forces. Some 19,000 people were arrested who were later released.
Iran has executed at least 582 people in 2022, up from 333 in 2021. The surge in executions, including for drug violations and vague charges of what the government called ‘enmity against God’ and ‘spreading corruption on earth’, has drawn criticism from United Nation (UN) officials and human rights activists.
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