Iran executions up 75% as Tehran seeks to ‘instil fear’ in anti-regime protesters, rights groups say
(CNN) Iran executed a minimum of 582 folks final yr, a 75% enhance on the earlier yr, in accordance to human rights groups who say the rise displays an effort by Tehran to “instill fear” amongst anti-regime protesters.
It was the very best variety of executions in the Islamic republic since 2015, in accordance to a report launched Thursday by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and the France-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) groups.
The overwhelming majority of the executions — a minimum of 544 — have been of individuals accused of homicide and drug-related offenses, stated the report. It added that nearly 90% of the executions it recorded weren’t introduced by Iranian authorities and a few had been carried out in secret.
The two rights groups stated the rise was Tehran’s approach of making an attempt to frighten protesters and forestall dissent, following a nationwide uprising sparked by the demise of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini final September.
“Iran’s authorities demonstrated how crucial the death penalty is to instill societal fear in order to hold onto power,” the report stated.
Iranian authorities have responded to the protests with brute pressure, mass arrests and hasty sham trials, drawing sharp world condemnation and sanctions from the United States.
The report documented 15 executions carried out on the vaguely outlined fees of “enmity against God” and “corruption on Earth.”
Mohsen Shekari — reportedly the primary particular person to be executed in reference to the protests — was hanged on December 8 after he was convicted of “waging war against God” for allegedly stabbing a member of the Basij paramilitary pressure, a wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, at a protest in Tehran on September 23. Less than every week later, Majidreza Rahnavard was additionally convicted for reportedly killing two members of the identical paramilitary pressure and injuring 4 others on November 17.
Two other Iranian young men — Mohammad Mehdi Karami, a karate champion; and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, a volunteer kids’s coach — have been hanged on January 7 this yr in reference to the protests, in accordance to Iran’s judiciary information company Mizan. They have been convicted of killing a member of the Basij paramilitary pressure in Karaj on November 3, Mizan reported. The human rights report stated they have been charged with “corruption on Earth.”
Dozens of different protesters have obtained demise sentences in latest months.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has openly praised the Basij for its position in the crackdown, describing the protesters as “rioters” and “thugs” backed by international forces.
But United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Chief Volker Turk has criticized the crackdown as pushing Iran right into a “full-fledged human rights crisis.”
An ‘execution machine’
More than half of the executions final yr came about after the protests erupted in September. Some 44% of all these sentenced to demise have been accused of drug-related offenses, regardless of no proof of a marked rise in drug use or trafficking reported by worldwide companies, the report stated.
IHR Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam instructed Iran would have executed much more folks had it not been for “international reactions to the death sentences against protesters” which had “made it difficult for the Islamic republic to proceed” with the killings.
“To compensate, and in order to spread fear among people, the authorities have intensified executions for non-political charges. These are the low-cost victims of the Islamic republic’s execution machine,” Amiry-Moghaddam stated.
“In order to stop this machine, the international community and civil society inside and outside Iran must show the same reaction to each and every execution,” he added.
In the report, the 2 rights groups urged the worldwide group “to increase efforts to support the demands of the Iranian people for respect of their fundamental human rights and the abolition of the death penalty.”
Previous reporting from CNN’s Teele Rebane, Artemis Moshtaghian, Adam Pourahmadi and Jomana Karadsheh.
