Iran executes second protester after ‘sham’ trial where he was denied a lawyer and arrived covered in injuries
- Majidreza Rahnavard executed in the city of Mashhad, northern Iran, on Monday
- He was charged with ‘waging war against God’ after allegedly attacking militia
- Activists say he was given a sham trial with no lawyer and bore signs of torture
Iran has executed a second protester amid nationwide demonstrations calling for an end to the mullahs’ rule.
Majidreza Rahnavard was put to death early Monday on a charge of ‘waging war against God’ after what human rights activists say was a ‘sham’ trial.
Officially, Rahnavard was charged with fatally stabbing two members of Basij militia forces which have been involved in violently suppressing the protests.
But human rights activists say he was brought to court without a lawyer and bearing signs of torture. Iranian state media say he confessed.
Majidreza Rahnavard was executed in public on Monday in Iran on a charge of ‘waging war against God’ after what activists say was a sham trial
Mohsen Shekari was hanged last week, becoming the first person to be executed since protests broke out in Iran back in September
Rahnavard was accused of carrying out his attack – in which four militiamen were said to have been injured – in the city of Mashhad last month.
Iranian authorities, which did not give a motive for the attack, say he was then caught trying to flee the country on November 19.
Rahnavard was executed in public in the same city where his alleged crimes took place on Monday. The method of execution was not given.
Iran has been rocked by weeks of protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurdish woman who died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly failing to wear a compulsory headscarf.
The first execution linked to the protests took place on Thursday.
Mohsen Shekari, 23, was sentenced to death for allegedly blocking a street and wounding a security guard at the start of the protests.
Shekari was charged with ‘waging war against God’ after the Iranian regime said he blocked Sattar Khan Boulevard on September 25 during a riot in Tehran and ‘stabbed the left shoulder of a Basiji’, the official IRNA news agency reported.
‘Mohsen gave his life for freedom. He wanted a normal life. One more brave soul killed by this bloody regime,’ said Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist and campaigner, who posted a photo on Twitter she claimed was Shekari.
The execution comes as other detainees also face possible death penalty for their involvement in the protests, which began first as an outcry against Iran’s morality police and have expanded into one of the most serious challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Activists warn others could be put to death as well soon, with at least a dozen people receiving death sentences over their involvement in the demonstrations.
Haidar al-Zaidi, 20, was sentenced to three years over a tweet of disputed origin deemed insulting to a pro-Iran ex-paramilitary force, according to court documents seen by AFP.
Two protesters were killed in Nasiriyah in clashes with security forces at a rally after an activist was handed a jail term, authorities said
Mourners accompany the casket of one of the two protesters killed earlier in clashes with security forces, in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriy
Amnesty International said it obtained a document signed by one senior Iranian police commander asking an execution for one prisoner be ‘completed “in the shortest possible time” and that his death sentence be carried out in public as “a heart-warming gesture towards the security forces.”‘
The organisation last month condemned the ‘chilling use of the death penalty’ to suppress the protests.
The ‘execution of Mohsen Shekari must be [met] with strong reactions otherwise we will be facing daily executions of protesters,’ wrote Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of the Oslo-based activist group Iran Human Rights. ‘This execution must have rapid practical consequences internationally.’
Iran’s Mizan news agency said Shekari had been convicted in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, which typically holds closed-door cases that have been internationally criticized in other cases for not allowing those on trial to pick their own lawyers or even see the evidence against them.
Mizan said Shekari had been arrested September 25, then convicted November 20 on the charge of ‘moharebeh’, a Farsi word meaning ‘waging war against God.’
That charge has been levied against others in the decades since 1979 and carries the death penalty.
Protests broke out across Iran on Wednesday night with local reports of huge crowds descending on a central square in Tehran in a renewed bid to overthrow the Islamic theocracy.
Strikes and rallies have been organised across the country this week, with shops closing their doors in a three-day strike as calls to overthrow the regime strengthen.
Iran has been rocked by protests since the September 16 death of 22-year-old Amini, who died after being detained by the country’s morality police.
At least 475 people have been killed in the demonstrations amid a heavy-handed security crackdown, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that’s been monitoring the protests since they began. Over 18,000 have been detained by authorities.
Iran is one of the world’s top executioners, typically executing prisoners by hanging.
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