DUBAI, United Arab Emirates –
Iran executed a second prisoner on Monday convicted of crimes committed during nationwide protests challenging the country’s theocracy, publicly hanging him from a construction crane. Served as a terrible warning to others.
The execution of Majidreza Rahnavard comes less than a month after he allegedly stabbed two members of the paramilitary force after being deliberately angered about the killing of protesters by security forces.
The development underscores the speed with which Iran is now enforcing the death penalty against those detained during protests the government hopes to quell.
Activists warn that at least a dozen people have been sentenced to death during closed-door hearings. At least 488 people have been killed since the protests began in mid-September, according to human rights activists in Iran, a group that is monitoring the protests. Another 18,200 people were detained by the authorities.
Iran’s Mizan news agency, which is part of the country’s judiciary, has published a collage of Rahnavard hanging from a crane, his hands and feet bound, his head covered with a black bag.
Masked security force members stand guard in front of a concrete and metal fence preventing crowds from gathering early Monday morning in the Iranian city of Mashhad.
Mizan accused Rahnavard of stabbing two security force members to death on November 17 in Mashhad and wounding four others.
Footage broadcast on state television showed a man chasing another around a street corner, then standing over him and stabbing him after he fell onto a parked motorbike. Another photo shows the same man stabbing another shortly after. The attacker, whom state television accused of being Rahnavard, later fled.
Mizan’s report identified the dead as “students” Basij, paramilitary volunteers with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Basij (three-SEEJ’) deployed in major cities, attacking and detaining protesters, who in many cases fought back.
A heavily edited state television report that aired after Rahnavard’s execution showed clips of him in the courtroom. In the video, he says he grew to hate the Basijis after seeing video clips on social media of the force beating and killing protesters.
Mizan’s report accused Rahnavard of trying to escape to a foreign country when he was arrested.
Mashhad, a holy Shi’ite city, is located about 740 kilometers east of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Activists say they have seen strikes, store closures and protests amid unrest that began with the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman. age was detained by the ethics police of Iran.
Mizan said Rahnavard was convicted at the Revolutionary Court of Mashhad. The courts have come under international criticism for not allowing those on trial to choose their own lawyers or even see the evidence against them.
Rahnavard was convicted of “moharebeh”, a Farsi word meaning “waging war against God”. That charge has been applied to others for decades since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and resulted in the death penalty.
In images of his execution, a banner carried the Quranic verse: “Verily, the punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Apostle, and try to cause corruption. crushed upon the earth, that they would be killed or crucified, or had their arms and legs cut off from opposite sides, or banished from the land.
Public executions by cranes have been rare in recent years, although Iran has used a similar method of hanging to quell unrest following a controversial 2009 presidential election. and Green Movement protests followed.
Often, convicts are still alive when cranes lift them off their feet, hang from ropes and try to breathe before suffocating or breaking their necks.
In the past, activists have pressured companies that supply cranes to Iran, warning that they could be used for executions.
From Brussels, the foreign ministers of the European Union expressed their disappointment at the latest execution. The bloc’s top diplomat said on Monday the bloc would adopt a new set of sanctions against Iran over its crackdown on protesters, as well as supply drones to Russia for use. in the war against Ukraine.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he had spoken with Iran’s foreign minister about Tehran’s response to the latest protests and executions and that it was “not an easy conversation. “
“We are going to pass a very, very tough package of sanctions,” Borrell told reporters as he arrived to chair the ministerial meeting in Brussels. The Finnish foreign minister said he also phoned his Iranian counterpart.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock described the execution as “a flagrant attempt to intimidate” Iranians.
“We are making it clear that we stand with the innocent people of Iran,” Baerbock said as he arrived at the meeting in Brussels. “A system that treats its people in this way cannot expect to continue to have normal mid-term relations with the European Union.”
Iran is one of the world’s leading execution countries and often executes prisoners by hanging. It executed its first prisoner detained during the protests last Thursday.
Amnesty International said it had received a document signed by a senior Iranian police commander demanding that the execution of a prisoner be “completed ‘within the shortest possible time’ and that the his death sentence must be carried out in public as a ‘heartwarming gesture to the security forces’.’
Amidst the turmoil, Iran was also battered by an economic crisis that sent the national currency, the rial, to new lows against the US dollar.
Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
