Iran executes three males related to anti-government protests

Rights teams say the three have been accused unfairly, made to admit underneath torture and convicted with out enough proof, to discourage dissent. The executions adopted “a grossly unfair trial that bore no resemblance to significant judicial proceedings,” rights group Amnesty Worldwide mentioned in an announcement.

Three protesters face death in Iran, in year of more than 200 executions

Washington had warned Tehran towards finishing up the sentences.

“The execution of those males — after what have been broadly thought to be sham trials — can be an affront to human rights and fundamental dignity in Iran and in all places,” State Division deputy spokesman Vedant Patel mentioned at a information briefing Thursday. “It’s clear from this episode that the Iranian regime has realized nothing from the protests.”

Authorities carried out the executions, for which no public date had been set, behind jail partitions Friday morning, after Iran’s excessive court docket rejected a last enchantment, in accordance with Mizan Information Company, which is affiliated with the nation’s judiciary. Iran usually carries out executions by hanging.

Amnesty Worldwide, citing “knowledgeable sources,” discovered that interrogators had “suspended Majid Kazemi the wrong way up and confirmed him a video of them torturing his brother, whom additionally they detained,” and subjected him to “mock executions at the very least 15 instances by standing him on a chair and placing a rope round his neck.”

The three executions carry to seven the variety of individuals put to demise in reference to the “Girls, Life, Freedom” protests over clerical rule. No less than 5 others stay on demise row, in accordance with HRANA, a Virginia-based activist information company targeted on Iran. Dozens have been charged with capital offenses. Rights teams say that an estimated 500 demonstrators and bystanders even have been killed within the protests.

The ordeal of the three males drew widespread consideration in Iran, as an indication of how far authorities might be prepared to push their ongoing crackdown months after the protests dwindled.

“These executions are supposed to delay the Islamic Republic’s rule and solely a excessive political price can cease extra protester executions,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of the nongovernmental group Iran Human Rights, wrote on Twitter.

The three have been arrested Nov. 21 and accused of killing the 2 Basij members and the regulation enforcement officer six days earlier throughout protests in Isfahan, in central Iran. Authorities have accused demonstrators of being rioters and underneath the affect of overseas intelligence businesses.

The defendants have been tried swiftly, not given entry to their attorneys and convicted with none stable proof linking them to the deaths, advocates mentioned. One of many judges most associated with sentencing protesters to death discovered them responsible of “waging struggle towards God.”

“The surprising pace at which these males have been ushered to their deaths illustrates the Iranian authorities’ flagrant disregard for the rights to life and a good trial,” Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty Worldwide’s deputy director for the Center East and North Africa, mentioned in an announcement Friday.

Unrelated to the protest motion, Iran has carried out a “horrifying” spate of executions this 12 months, primarily of males from minority backgrounds charged with drug offenses, United Nations rights chief Volker Türk mentioned lately.

Kazemi, 31, had a enterprise making copper kitchenware, Mirhashemi, 36, was a karate champion and bodybuilder teacher, and Yaqoubi, 38, labored at an actual property firm and supported his mother and father, in accordance with information studies.

When the protest motion unfold, Washington expressed help for the demonstrators and piled extra financial sanctions on Iran. However some Iranians demanded that the worldwide neighborhood do extra to carry their nation’s leaders accountable.

In its Friday assertion, Amnesty Worldwide urged governments to denounce the executions and to cost Iranian officers with crimes under the principle of universal jurisdiction — by which a state can prosecute sure severe crimes dedicated in different international locations.

“Intensifying diplomatic/financial isolation ought to comply with these state-sanctioned killings,” Hadi Ghaemi, head of the Washington-based Middle for Human Rights in Iran, wrote Friday on Twitter. “Except the Iranian authorities are met with severe penalties by the worldwide neighborhood, tons of of protester lives will probably be taken by their killing machine.”