Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Iran on Monday executed a second prisoner detained and convicted amid nationwide protests difficult the nation’s theocracy, airing footage on state tv it claimed confirmed him stabbing two males to dying and working away.
The public hanging of Majidreza Rahnavard, lower than a month after he allegedly carried out the deadly stabbings of two safety officers, reveals the pace at which Iran now carries out dying sentences handed down for these detained within the demonstrations the federal government hopes to place down.
Activists warn that a minimum of a dozen folks have already got been sentenced to dying in closed-door hearings. At least 488 folks have been killed because the demonstrations started in mid-September, in keeping with Human Rights Activists in Iran, a gaggle that is been monitoring the protests. Another 18,200 folks have been detained by authorities.
AP Photo
Iran’s Mizan news company, beneath the nation’s judiciary, alleged Rahnavard stabbed two safety drive members to dying Nov. 17 in Mashhad and wounded 4 others.
Footage aired on state TV confirmed a person chasing one other round a road nook, then standing over him and stabbing him after he fell in opposition to a parked bike. Another confirmed the identical man stabbing one other instantly after. The assailant, which state TV alleged was Rahnavard, then fled.
The Mizan report recognized the lifeless as “student” Basij, paramilitary volunteers beneath Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The Basij have deployed in main cities, attacking and detaining protesters, who in lots of instances have fought again.
A closely edited state tv report aired after Rahnavard’s execution confirmed clips of him within the courtroom. In the video, he says he got here to hate the Basijis after seeing video clips on social media of the forces beating and killing protesters.
The Mizan report supplied no motive for Rahnavard’s alleged assault. The report stated Rahnavard was attempting to flee to a overseas nation when he was arrested.
Mashhad, a Shiite holy metropolis, is positioned some 460 miles east of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Activists say it has seen strikes, outlets closed and demonstrations amid the unrest that started over the Sept. 16 dying in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old girl who had been detained by Iran’s morality police for allegedly breaching the nation’s strict hijab gown code for ladies.
The nationwide protests have expanded into some of the critical challenges to Iran’s theocracy since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Mizan stated Rahnavard was convicted in Mashhad’s Revolutionary Court. The tribunals have been internationally criticized for not permitting these on trial to choose their very own legal professionals and even see the proof in opposition to them.
Rahnavard had been convicted on the cost of “moharebeh,” a Farsi phrase that means “waging war against God.” That cost has been levied in opposition to others within the many years because the revolution and carries the dying penalty.
Iran is among the world’s high executioners and sometimes executes prisoners by hanging. It executed the primary prisoner detained throughout demonstrations final Thursday.
Afterwards, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Oslo-based activist group Iran Human Rights wrote that the “execution of #MohsenShekari must be me with STRONG reactions otherwise we will be facing daily executions of protesters. This execution must have rapid practical consequences internationally.”
Amnesty International has stated it obtained a doc signed by a senior Iranian police commander asking that the execution for one prisoner be “completed ‘in the shortest possible time’ and that his death sentence be carried out in public as ‘a heart-warming gesture towards the security forces.'”
Amnesty says “Iranian authorities use the death penalty as a tool of political repression to instill fear among the public and end the popular uprising.”
Amid the unrest, Iran can also be battered by an financial disaster that has seen the nationwide forex, the rial, drop to new lows in opposition to the U.S. greenback.