human rights
Iran executes three more protesters
Saleh Mirhashemi (lr), Said Jakobi and Majid Kasemi during their trials. The protesters were executed in Iran after controversial trials. photo
© Uncredited/Mizan News Agency/AP/dpa
After trials that were widely criticized internationally, Iran executed three more demonstrators. Criticism comes from Germany – and concerns about a convicted German-Iranian are growing.
Iran executed three more participants in mass anti-government protests on Friday. The men were executed in the morning, as reported by the Misan justice portal. They were found guilty of killing three security forces in the metropolis of Isfahan during nationwide demonstrations in the Islamic Republic in November. The allegations cannot be verified independently.
Those executed were Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kasemi and Said Jakobi. According to Islamic legal opinion in Iran, they were sentenced to death for “waging war against God”. Right up to the end, human rights activists and relatives had fought to prevent the execution. Amnesty International reported that the confessions were extracted under torture.
The goal is intimidation
Human rights activists have criticized the use of the death penalty in Iran for years. The execution of four protesters at the beginning of the year sparked an international outcry. According to critics, the state is pursuing the goal of intimidating the protest movement. While street protests decreased significantly after the executions, many are now expressing their protest in other forms. In the big cities, for example, many women demonstratively ignore the headscarf requirement.
For days, the families had been fighting for the lives of the convicts. Amnesty released a handwritten note from the three men, said to have been smuggled out of the detention center. “Don’t let them kill us,” the note said. A German-Iranian convicted in Iran is also threatened with execution. In February, a revolutionary court held 68-year-old Djamshid Sharmahd responsible for a terrorist attack, among other things.
The Foreign Office in Berlin condemned the executions. “The federal government rejects the death penalty under all circumstances. We continue to call on Iran to immediately suspend this inhuman, cruel and degrading form of punishment,” said a ministry spokesman. The EU also called on Iran. to immediately end the imposition and execution of death sentences against demonstrators. The Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights, Luise Amtsberg, also expressed her dismay.
Two EU citizens also executed
Human rights activists in Iran have been talking about a wave of executions for weeks. According to the UN, more than 200 people have already been executed this year. According to a report, the number of recorded executions in Iran rose from 314 in 2021 to 576 in 2022. The executions of two EU citizens had also sparked international criticism.
The wave of protests in the fall was triggered by the death of the young Iranian Kurd Jina Mahsa Amini. She died in police custody in mid-September after being arrested by the Morality Police for disobeying Islamic dress codes. Her death triggered the most serious protests in decades – first as part of a women’s movement against compulsory headscarves, then against the entire Islamic system. Iran’s political and clerical leadership is under pressure. More than 500 protesters were killed during the protests, according to human rights organizations.