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Iran executed not less than 582 individuals final 12 months, a 75% improve on the earlier 12 months, in response to human rights teams who say the rise displays an effort by Tehran to “instill fear” amongst anti-regime protesters.
It was the best variety of executions within the Islamic republic since 2015, in response to a report launched Thursday by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and the France-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) teams.
The overwhelming majority of the executions – not less than 544 – had 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 teams stated the rise was Tehran’s manner of attempting to frighten protesters and stop dissent, following a nationwide rebellion 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 drive, 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 individual 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 drive, a wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, at a protest in Tehran on September 23. Less than per week later, Majidreza Rahnavard was additionally convicted for reportedly killing two members of the identical paramilitary drive and injuring 4 others on November 17.
Two different Iranian younger males – Mohammad Mehdi Karami, a karate champion; and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, a volunteer kids’s coach – had been hanged on January 7 this 12 months in reference to the protests, in response to Iran’s judiciary news company Mizan. They had been convicted of killing a member of the Basij paramilitary drive in Karaj on November 3, Mizan reported. The human rights report stated they had been charged with “corruption on Earth.”
Dozens of different protesters have acquired demise sentences in latest months.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has brazenly praised the Basij for its position within 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.”
More than half of the executions final 12 months happened after the protests erupted in September. Some 44% of all these sentenced to demise had been accused of drug-related offenses, regardless of no proof of a marked rise in drug use or trafficking reported by worldwide businesses, the report stated.
IHR Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam prompt Iran would have executed much more individuals 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 teams 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.”
Source: www.cnn.com