"We need your help. Don't let them kill us."

[pieter]

[pieter]

May 19, 2023

By RFE/RL's Radio Farda

Iran Executes Three More Protesters Despite Outcry Over 'Illegal' Trials, Forced 'Confessions'


(Left to right) Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kazemi, and Saeid Yaqoubi were reportedly executed early on May 19.

Iran has executed three men detained during anti-government protests despite a public outcry over their convictions and objections by rights groups and several governments who say authorities held rushed trials, forced "confessions," and denied the accused due process.

According to a report published by the Mizan News Agency, affiliated with Iran's judiciary, Saleh Mirehashemi, Majid Kazemi, and Saeed Yaqoubi were executed at dawn on May 19 in a prison in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.

The clash occurred at the height of widespread protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022 while she was in police custody for allegedly breaking Islamic hijab rules.

However, based on a picture of the court verdict made public by the defendants' families, the death sentences for the three were not issued for murder, but instead for "waging war against God," a crime often applied to political dissidents.

The trio also did not accept the charge of murder during forced confessions broadcast on Iran's state television.

Public and international calls for the cancellation of the executions have surged in recent days after the Iranian Supreme Court upheld the sentences. Family members of the condemned and supporters have held numerous rallies in front of Isfahan's central prison. They were met with an often violent response from security forces.

Following the announcement of the executions of the three men, Amnesty International said it was “horrified” by the actions, which it said were the result of “flawed,” fast-tracked trials.

The European Union said it condemned the executions "in the strongest possible terms," while Australian Senator Penny Wong wrote on Twitter that “we condemn these reprehensible killings in the strongest possible terms…. Australia stands with the people of Iran.”

The condemned individuals issued their own plea for public assistance, penning a desperate message from within the prison on May 18 that was smuggled out and published on social media. "Don't let them kill us. We need your help," the handwritten letter implored.

A group of Iranian lawyers and jurists emphasized in a letter on May 15 that the legal proceedings, review, and conviction of the three were "illegal" and that "fair trial standards had not been observed in any of these cases."

Authorities warned for months after unrest broke out following Amini's death that they would react harshly to any dissent. Lawmakers have pushed the judiciary to render the death penalty in trials for those arrested during the protests, which are seen as one of the biggest threats to the Islamic leadership since it took power in 1979.

So far, Iranian authorities have followed through with their threats by executing at least seven protesters, including the three on May 19.

Human rights activists say authorities in Iran are using the executions to try to instill fear in society rather than to combat crime.

Amnesty International said in an annual report on May 16 that Iran saw executions soar to 576 in 2022 from 314 the previous year.

The Norway-based Iran Human Rights group says that so far this year at least 256 people have been executed in Iran, including at least 90 in the last 18 days, making May the "bloodiest month" in the country in the last five years.

"What we’re witnessing in Iran are not executions, but extrajudicial mass killings to create societal fear to maintain power," Iran Human Rights Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.

"In order to stop the Islamic republic's killing machine, firm and concrete action is needed by the international community and not just expressions of regret and condemnations."

The United States on May 18 urged Iran not to carry out the three executions, but some activists and even Western politicians said that more must be done to stop the wave of death penalties being carried out by Tehran.

"No one knows if they could have been saved, but Germany & the EU don't even try. [German Foreign Minister Anna] Baerbock must finally look and find words for the horror that is taking place in Iran. Silence is not politics!" Norbert Rottgen, a member of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote on Twitter.

Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda

[pieter]

Iran executes three over anti-government protests


Saeed Yaqoubi, Saleh Mirhashemi and Majid Kazemi denied the accusations against them

By David Gritten
BBC News

Authorities in Iran have executed three men sentenced to death in connection with the nationwide anti-government protests last year, the judiciary says.
The three were convicted over their alleged involvement in a shooting attack that killed three security personnel in Isfahan in November.

Amnesty International says they were subjected to unfair trials and allegedly tortured.

Four other protesters have been hanged since December.

Dozens more have reportedly been sentenced to death or charged with capital offences.

The protests swept across the Islamic Republic following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was detained by morality police in Tehran in September for allegedly wearing her hijab "improperly".

The three who were executed on Friday - Majid Kazemi, 30, Saleh Mirhashemi, 36, and Saeed Yaqoubi, 37 - were arrested after protests in the central city of Isfahan on 16 November, during which two Basij paramilitary force members and a police officer were shot dead.

Sources told Amnesty International that the men were forcibly disappeared, then tortured and forced to make incriminating statements that formed the basis of the criminal cases against them.

Interrogators allegedly suspended Kazemi upside down, showed him a video of them torturing his brother, subjected him to mock executions and threatened to kill his brothers.

In an audio message from inside Dastgerd prison, where the three men were held, Kazemi was heard saying: "I swear to God I am innocent. I didn't have any weapons on me. They [security forces] kept beating me and ordering me to say this weapon is mine.

"I told them I would say whatever they wanted, just please leave my family alone."

A Revolutionary Court convicted Kazemi and the other two men of "enmity against God", a vaguely-defined national security charge, and sentenced them to death in January following what activists said was a four-day trial.

According to the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), they were denied the ability to prepare a proper defence, prosecutors relied on forced "confessions" and the indictment was "riddled with irregularities that reveal this was a politically motivated case".

Last week, authorities announced that the supreme court had upheld their sentences.

"The use of the death penalty against these men is a blatant act of vengeance against a courageous generation of protesters for steadfastly demanding the rights of Iranian people during the past seven months," Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty's Middle East deputy director, said in a statement on Wednesday.

"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."

UN human rights chief Volker Türk last week expressed dismay at what he called the "frighteningly high number of executions" this year in Iran.

He cited the UN's sources as saying that at least 209 people had been put to death so far this year - more than 10 people each week - mostly for drug-related offences, calling it "an abominable record".

[karl]

Pieter

This is such a shame but an act of reality, for Iran is not Europe nor of the middle eastern states with the law of Sharia. Each of these Governments will protect themselves with every means available until overthrown by force. Then these overthrown governments are replaced by one just as bad or worse, it simple is the pursuit and protection of power.

No matter the reaction or opinion of ourselves, these Mideastern states are still Sovern states with their own power and Government structure.

Karl

[pieter]