Iran drew international condemnation on Saturday as it executed two men for killing a paramilitary force member in November during unprecedented protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in custody.
The latest hangings double the number of executions to four over the nationwide unrest, which has escalated since mid-September into calls for an end to Iran’s clerical regime.
They also come in defiance of a campaign by international rights groups for the lives of the two men to be spared.
Photo: Reuters
Judicial news agency Mizan Online reported that “Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, the main perpetrators of the crime that led to the martyrdom of Ruhollah Ajamian, were hanged this morning.”
Prosecutors said the 27-year-old militiaman was stripped naked and killed by a group of mourners who had been paying tribute to slain protester Hadis Najafi.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the executions, which it said followed “unfair trials based on forced confessions.”
Photo: Reuters
Washington said it condemned them “in the strongest terms.”
“These executions are a key component of the regime’s effort to suppress protests,” US Department of State spokesman Ned Price said.
The EU said it was “appalled” by the use of the death penalty against civilian protesters.
German Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock said the executions “strengthen us in our desire to raise the pressure further on Tehran with the EU.”
Iranian authorities have arrested thousands in their crackdown on the wave of demonstrations that began after the death of 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Amini on Sept. 16 last year, following her arrest for allegedly breaching Iran’s dress code for women.
Two other men were put to death last month, sparking global outrage and new Western sanctions against Iran. Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard, both 23, had been convicted of separate attacks on security forces.
Ajamian had belonged to the Basij paramilitary force, linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
He died in Karaj, west of Tehran, on Nov. 3 after being attacked with “knives, stones, fists, kicks” and dragged along a street, a judiciary spokesman said at the time.
Karami and Hosseini were sentenced to death early last month, while the Iranian Supreme Court upheld the decision on Tuesday, Mizan said.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR), said that both men “were subjected to torture, sentenced after sham trials ... without the minimum standards for due process.”
IHR gave Karami’s age as 22.
Hossein was 39, said another Norway-based rights group, Hengaw.
Karami’s parents had in December issued a video pleading for authorities to spare his life. Mashallah Karami described his son as a former national karate team member and told Iranian media that a family lawyer had been unable to access his case file.
Karami was not allowed to have a final meeting with his family, their representative, Mohamad Aghasi, said on Twitter.
The pair were among 14 people courts have sentenced to death over the unrest, according to an Agence France-Presse count based on official reports.
Four have now been executed, two others have had their sentences confirmed by the Supreme Court, six are awaiting retrials and two others can appeal.
Dozens of other protesters face charges punishable by death, IHR said late last month.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
TRUDEAU IN TROUBLE: US president-elect Donald Trump reacted to Chrystia Freeland’s departure, saying: ‘Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday quit in a surprise move after disagreeing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also stepped down as finance minister, marked the first open dissent against Trudeau from within his Cabinet, and could threaten his hold on power. Liberal leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election. “It’s not been an easy day,” Trudeau said at a fundraiser Monday evening, but
RSS