DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran said Thursday it executed a prisoner convicted of a crime allegedly committed during the country’s ongoing nationwide protests, the first such death penalty by Tehran.
Mohsen Shekari’s execution comes as other detainees also face the possibility of the death penalty for their part in the protests, which began in mid-September, first as an outcry against Iran’s morality police. The protests have expanded into one of the most serious challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Activists warn that others could also be killed in the near future, saying that at least a dozen people have so far received death sentences for their participation in the demonstrations.
The execution “must be met with strong reactions, otherwise we will face daily executions of protesters,” wrote Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group. “This execution must have swift practical consequences at the international level.”
Iran’s judiciary-run Mizan news agency said Shekari had been sentenced in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, which normally hears cases behind closed doors. The courts have been criticized internationally for not allowing judges to choose their own lawyers or even to see the evidence against them.
Shekari was accused of blocking a street in Tehran and attacking a member of the security forces with a machete, who required stitches for his wounds, the agency said.
The Mizan report also alleged that Shekari said an acquaintance had offered him money to attack security forces.
For months, Iran’s government has been trying to allege, without providing evidence, that foreign countries have fomented the unrest. Protesters say they are angered by the collapse of the economy, the police force and the entrenched power of the country’s Islamic clergy.
Mizan said Shekari had been arrested on September 25 and later convicted on November 20 on the charge of “moharebeh”, a Farsi word meaning “waging war against God”. This charge has been brought against others in the decades since 1979 and carries the death penalty. Mizan said an appeal by Shekari’s lawyer against the sentence failed.
After his execution, Iranian state television aired a heavily edited package showing the courtroom and parts of Shekari’s trial, presided over by Judge Abolghassem Salavati.
Salavati faces US sanctions for harsh punishments.
“Salavati alone has sentenced more than 100 political prisoners, human rights activists, media workers and others seeking to exercise freedom of assembly to lengthy prison terms and multiple death sentences,” the US Treasury said. United in sanctioning him in 2019.
“The judges of these revolutionary courts, including Salavati, have acted as judge and prosecutor, deprived prisoners of access to lawyers and intimidated the accused.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock condemned Shekari’s execution in a post on Twitter, saying the Iranian regime’s “contempt for humanity is boundless.”
James Cleverly, the UK foreign secretary, described himself as “outraged” and said: “The world cannot turn a blind eye to the abhorrent violence committed by the Iranian regime against its own people “.
The French Foreign Ministry said “the execution is yet another example of the serious and unacceptable violations of fundamental rights and freedoms committed by the Iranian authorities.”
Iran has been rocked by protests since the September 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being detained by the country’s morality police. At least 475 people have died in the demonstrations amid a heavy security crackdown, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been monitoring the protests since they began. More than 18,000 have been arrested by the authorities.
Iran is one of the world’s leading executioners. He usually executes prisoners by hanging. Already, Amnesty International said it obtained a document signed by a senior Iranian police commander calling for the execution of a prisoner to be “ended as soon as possible” and that his death sentence be ‘applied in public as “a heart-warming gesture towards the security forces”.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated the organization’s firm opposition to the death penalty on Thursday.
“And we deplore what we see today in Iran and, unfortunately, we see it in other countries,” Dujarric said. “What we would like to see is a world where there is no death penalty.”
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Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.
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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.