Iran
Mohammed Mahdi Karami (left) and Seyyed Mohammed Hosseini (right) were executed in Iran on January 6, 2023. Photos: Masih Alinejad/Twitter
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran carried out Saturday two additional death sentences after finding the men guilty of killing a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the judiciary reported, marking the third and fourth executions over the protest movement.
“Mohammed Mahdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammed Hosseini, the main perpetrators of the crime that led to the martyrdom of Ruhollah Ajamian, were hanged this morning,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online said.
The executions of Karami and Hosseini follow that of Majidreza Rahnavard, who was publicly hanged on December 12, also for allegedly killing two members of the IRGC’s paramilitary Basij.
Mizan accused the perpetrators of “brutally” attacking the Basij member by throwing stones, stabbing, and dragging him on a highway in Karaj, west of the capital Tehran, as a group of protestors were marching and paying tribute to Hadis Najafi, a woman who was killed on September 21 in the early days of the protests that are approaching four months.
Iran on December 8 carried out the first official protest-linked execution. Mohsen Shekari, 23, was hanged after being similarly accused of wounding a member of the Basij.
Protests spread across the Islamic republic in the aftermath of the death of young Kurdish woman Zhina (Mahsa) Amini at the hands of the morality police on September 16, sparking a violent crackdown by Iranian security forces, particularly the IRGC and its paramilitary Basij.
At least 517 protesters, including 70 children, have been killed and over 19,000 have been arrested since the protests began almost four months ago, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) on Friday.
The protests, which authorities describe as “riots,” are perhaps the biggest challenge the regime in Iran is facing since its establishment in 1979. Iran is one of the world’s top executioners and is using this method as an attempt to quell the protests.
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