Iranian govt. hangs man over protests
The Iranian government announced it had hanged a 23-year-old prisoner Thursday, the first known execution of a person arrested in the protests that have engulfed the country for the past three months.
The man, Mohsen Shekari, was accused of blocking a street in Tehran and of attacking a member of the Basij militia with a machete, according to the Mizan news agency, which is overseen by the country’s judiciary. He is one of 11 protesters who have so far been sentenced to death by the regime.
The announcement came during a week that saw businesses, shops and bazaars in more than 50 cities participate in one of the largest general strikes in decades in support of protests calling for the end to the authoritarian clerical rule that has been in place since 1979.
Shekari was arrested Sept. 25 and sentenced Nov. 20 by Iran’s Revolutionary Court, a special court for political cases and political prisoners, the agency said. He was accused of moharebeh, or waging war against God, a charge that carries an automatic death sentence.
His execution — along with its speed after conviction — was taken as a clear signal that the government was escalating its efforts to intimidate protesters.
Activists, lawyers and ordinary Iranians immediately took to social media to condemn the hanging, saying Shekari was denied his access to a lawyer through his interrogations and legal proceedings.
“Iranian authorities have executed a protester, sentenced to death in show trials without any due process,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of Iran Human Rights, an Oslo, Norway-based activist group, wrote on Twitter. He said the execution should be met with “STRONG reactions” from the international community, “otherwise we will be facing daily executions of protesters.”
Sanam Vakil, the deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, a London research institute, said Iran’s leaders were sending a very direct message. “This could signify the apogee of its toleration,” she said. “Up until now, the system sees itself as having shown restraint, but this execution could be the end point to that.”
Iran’s police chief, Hossein Ashtari, said Thursday that “the police will not show restraint in dealing with security threats,” according to ISNA, the Iranian student news agency.
A heavily edited six-minute video, posted by Mizan after the execution, shows Shekari walking down a hallway with what appeared to be a limp.
In excerpts from his testimony, he is seen holding a cigarette or wielding a knife, reenacting his attack.
According to the Mizan report, Shekari admitted to blocking an intersection in the Sattar Khan neighborhood in Tehran with a companion, named Ali, who handed him the machete and offered him money if he stabbed a security officer.
The report said the injured officer needed 13 stitches.
It was not possible to independently verify the official account of the incident.
Sharyar, a protester who was held in prison before being released, said in a series of tweets that he had met Shekari during his incarceration. “Mohsen Shekari loved life — he was waiting for his freedom,” he wrote, describing his fellow inmate as a “quiet young man” who had been working at a cafe in Tehran when he decided to join the protests. Shekari had hoped his harsh sentence would be softened to 10 years in prison, Sharyar said.
Prominent Iranian athletes and celebrities also denounced the government’s use of the death sentence.
Navid Mohammadzadeh, a well-known actor in Iran, said in an Instagram post that tagged Shekari’s name, “Nothing washes off blood.”