Anti-regime protests: horror at executions in Iran

Politicians and activists have reacted in horror to the two recent executions of protesters in Iran. They denounced sham trials and called for more pressure on Tehran. Ayatollah Khamenei swapped the country’s police chief.

The execution of two other protesters in Iran has sparked global outrage. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called for more pressure on the Iranian regime. The two men were hanged “because they did not want to submit to the brutal and inhumane actions,” the minister wrote on Twitter. There are two “further terrible fates that encourage us to further increase the pressure on Tehran with the EU.”

Other federal politicians also called for consequences for Tehran. The regime belongs on the EU terror list, demanded the CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen. “This must now finally reach the Foreign Minister and the Chancellery.” FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sara called for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to be put on the EU’s terror list. The EU also condemned the renewed executions. British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly called the executions “despicable”.

Allegations of torture and sham trials

The two executed were 22 and 39 years old, according to Oslo-based NGOs. The Iranian judiciary had found them guilty of killing a member of the Revolutionary Guards’ Basij unit in Karaj near Tehran in early November, the Misan judicial news agency reported. They were “hanged this morning,” it said.

According to the judicial authority, the two men had admitted in court to having stabbed an allegedly unarmed security officer with a knife. The security guard was a member of the notorious paramilitary Basij unit of the Revolutionary Guards. According to the Mizan report, the supreme court rejected the plea for clemency by the two accused and upheld the death sentence.

The head of the NGO Iran Human Rights, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said the confessions were extracted and the men tortured. These are sham processes. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights made a similar statement. Amnesty International had denounced the “rapidly conducted unfair group trial” against the two men. He has “nothing in common with a meaningful court case”.

The number of demonstrators executed has risen to four, and hundreds of people have already been killed in the protests.

New police chief appointed

These have been going on for more than three months – now the head of state, Ayatollah Khamenei, has fired the country’s police chief, Hussein Ashtari. An official reason was not given. However, after the death of the Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in police custody, Ashtari came under criticism. Her death triggered the current wave of protests. Ashtari had denied any blame on the police for Amini’s death.

The new chief of police is Ashtari’s former deputy, Ahmad-Resa Radan. He is considered radical and has advocated a strict dress code for women in the past. Young men who would follow western hairstyle trends should also be arrested, he had demanded in the past. Radan has been on the US and EU sanctions lists for more than ten years.

More demonstrators are to be executed

Other demonstrators are also threatened with execution, but there is conflicting information about the exact number. Some courts of appeal had overturned the death sentence. There is talk of 20 demonstrators who are said to be on the judiciary’s death list. The Iranian leadership has so far neither confirmed nor denied these and similar statements.

According to the latest estimates by the US-based organization Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), more than 500 people have died in the protests, including 70 minors and almost 70 police and security forces. More than 19,000 demonstrators were arrested.