Status: 09.12.2022 01:32 am
Protests have been going on in Iran for months, and now one of the demonstrators has been executed. Foreign Minister Baerbock announced a tough reaction from the EU. The German government also summoned the Iranian ambassador.
After the first execution of a demonstrator since the protests began in Iran almost three months ago, Germany summoned the Iranian ambassador, according to information from the ARD Capital Studios from the Foreign Office was called.
The man was executed on Thursday. According to the Iranian judiciary, the 23-year-old injured a member of the paramilitary Basij militias during a roadblock in Tehran in September. According to the judicial authority, a revolutionary court in Tehran had convicted Mohsen Shekari of “waging war against God” – this charge is one of the most serious criminal offenses under Iranian law.
Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock accused the leadership in Tehran of “contempt for human beings” after the execution of the death sentence. Shekari was sentenced and executed in “a perfidious quick trial” “because he disagreed with the regime,” she wrote on Twitter.
Baerbock: The EU will react with “tough measures”.
She announced a tough reaction from the European Union. “We have been seeing for weeks that the Iranian regime’s oppression and arbitrariness are becoming increasingly brutal,” criticized the Green politician at a meeting with her Irish colleague Simon Coveney in the capital Dublin. “The death penalty is used as an instrument of terror, to people Hundreds and thousands arrested.” In prisons, sexualised violence is used in a targeted manner.
The events underlined “how important it was that we as the European Union reacted with specific human rights sanctions. And we will continue to react with tough measures.”
Coveney said the EU would take a strong and united position at next Monday’s meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels and expand sanctions on Iran.
UN experts concerned about more convicts
Independent UN experts expressed concern for other people who they say have been sentenced to death in connection with the demonstrations. According to the experts at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mohsen Shekari did not get a fair trial. Twelve other people are on death row for the same reasons as he is. The death penalty should, if at all, only be imposed for the very worst crimes – for example, if a perpetrator intentionally causes the death of others.
Iran has been rocked by protests since the death of young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini on September 16. The 22-year-old died three days after being arrested by the vice squad because of an improperly worn headscarf. Activists accuse the police of abusing the young woman.