Iran’s protests, which began in mid-September following the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly not adhering to a mandatory dress code sparked angry protests and has since led to the arrest of some protesters who have been sentenced to death by the Iranian judiciary.
On Monday, December 12,2022, Iran publicly executed a second individual who had been detained following violence associated with the country’s ongoing protests.
It was announced that , Majidreza Rahnavard, a 23 hear old Iranian wrestler who was convicted of killing two members of security forces, was executed in an undisclosed public location in Mashhad in front of a crowd, watching behind barricades.
Iran executed it’s first detainee linked with the protests, 23-year-old named Mohsen Shekari, on Thursday,December 8, for allegedly wounding a member of the Basij Resistance Force (a volunteer paramilitary organization operating under the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) ), with a long knife in central Tehran.
The execution of Rahnavard on Monday, which occurred less than a month after his detention for “waging war against God,” was intended to demonstrate, like the case of Shekari, how quickly the Iranian judiciary is handling cases involving the protests.
After the execution, the judiciary chief of the northeastern Razavi Khorasan, Gholamali Sadeghi, expressed gratitude to law enforcers for the swift execution of the sentence and for “answering public demands for establishing order and security and dealing with rioters and law-breakers”.
More than 450 people have reportedly died during the protests, according to international human rights organizations. This number exceeds the 200 deaths reported by Iran, which insists its security forces did not open fire on demonstrators.
Amnesty International criticized the action and stated following Shekari’s execution that “the clear aim of Iranian authorities is to instil fear among the public in a desperate attempt to cling to power and end the popular uprising”.
A fact-finding mission to look at how Iran handled the protests was approved by the UN Human Rights Council last month, but Iran’s Capital, Tehran warned it would not cooperate with the inquiry because of its “political” nature.
On Wednesday, there will be a vote to expel Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
Author- Roberta Appiah
