Iran said Monday that it has killed a second prisoner who had been captured and found guilty during widespread demonstrations against theocracy, displaying video on state television that it claimed showed him fatally stabbing two men and fleeing.
Less than a month after allegedly carrying out the murderous stabbings of two security personnel, Majidreza Rahnavard was publicly hanged. This action demonstrates how quickly Iran now carries out death penalties awarded to people jailed during protests the government is trying to suppress.
Activists caution that at least a dozen individuals have already received death sentences in secret trials. According to Human Rights Activists in Iran, an organization that has been keeping track of the protests, at least 488 people have died since the demonstrations started in mid-September. Authorities have apprehended another 18,200 persons.
According to Iran’s judiciary-run Mizan news agency, Rahnavard is accused of murdering two members of the security forces and injuring four others in Mashhad on November 17.
On camera, a guy was seen following another person around a street corner before standing over him and stabbing him when the other person tripped and fell against a parked motorcycle. Another saw the same guy quickly following by stabbing another. The attacker, who state TV identified as Rahnavard, then ran away.
The deceased were “student” Basij, paramilitary recruits for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to the Mizan article. In several instances, the protestors who were attacked and detained by the Basij in large cities retaliated by fighting back.
After Rahnavard’s execution, a carefully edited official television broadcast that included him in court aired. He claims in the video that he started to despise the Basijis after seeing videos of the police assaulting and murdering demonstrators posted on social media.
There was no explanation for Rahnavard’s reported assault in the Mizan report. Rahnavard allegedly tried to leave to another country when he was apprehended, according to the article.
Shiite holy city Mashhad is around 460 kilometers east of Tehran, the Iranian capital. In the midst of the unrest that started after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died in custody on September 16 after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly breaking the nation’s strict hijab dress code for women, activists claim there have been strikes, businesses closed, and demonstrations.
Since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, the countrywide demonstrations have grown into one of the country’s most significant threats to theocracy.
According to Mizan, the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad found Rahnavard guilty. The tribunals have drawn criticism from throughout the world for not letting people who are being tried choose their own attorneys or even examine the evidence against them.
Rahnavard had been found guilty of “moharebeh,” which is Farsi for “waging war against God.” Since the revolution, this accusation has been brought against additional people and carries a death sentence.
One of the most brutal countries in the world, Iran regularly hangs its inmates to death. On Thursday, it executed the first prisoner taken amid protests.
After that, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of the activist organization Iran Human Rights, located in Oslo, said that “In order to prevent protestors from being executed every day, I must carry out the execution of #MohsenShekari. This execution must have immediate worldwide practical repercussions.”
The execution of one prisoner should be “finished “in the shortest feasible period” and his death sentence should be carried out in public as “a heart-warming gesture for the security forces,” according to a document acquired by Amnesty International.
According to Amnesty International, “Iranian authorities employ the death penalty as a tactic of political repression to sow terror among the populace and put a stop to the popular revolt.”
In addition to the upheaval, Iran is experiencing a severe economic crisis that has caused the rial, the country’s currency, to reach unprecedented lows versus the dollar.
»During countrywide demonstrations, Iran kills second man«