Iran has carried out its first execution of a protester from the unrest sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, carrying out a death sentence handed to a man who was accused of "warfare" for allegedly injuring a security officer.
The Mizan news agency, which is affiliated with the judiciary, said Moshen Shekari was hanged on December 8 after his appeal against his sentence was rejected by Iran's Supreme Court.
Shekari was accused of brandishing a weapon with the "intention of killing and causing terror and depriving the freedom and security of people," as well as "intentionally injuring" a security officer with a weapon and "blocking the street."
Shekari was one of thousands of Iranians to take to the streets nationwide since Amini died while in police custody in September. She was being held for allegedly wearing a head scarf improperly.
The government has launched a brutal, and often deadly, crackdown on demonstrators, while lawmakers have pushed for harsh punishments to try and quell what has become the biggest challenge to the country's leadership since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
Rights groups and Western governments have warned Tehran about issuing death sentences to protesters after hasty trials some have called "sham" justice.
“Unfortunately, this is just really the latest tactic that we’ve seen from the Iranian regime with its ongoing, brutal crackdown on what can only be described as peaceful protesters -- individuals who are exercising their universal rights," U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said just two days before Shekari's execution.
"These sentences, we know, are meant to intimidate people, to suppress dissent. They are -- they simply underscore Iran’s leadership’s fears of its own people and the fact that Iran’s government fears the truth,” he added.
The activist HRANA news agency says that, as of November 29, at least 459 protesters had been killed during the unrest. The figure includes 64 minors.
Amnesty International says at least 28 people, including three children, could face execution in connection with nationwide protests as the Iranian authorities use the death penalty "as a tool of political repression to instill fear among the public and end the popular uprising."
"At least six people have already been sentenced to death in sham trials...The 28 individuals have all been denied fair trials including the rights to access lawyers of their choosing; to be presumed innocent; to remain silent; and to receive a fair, public hearing," it said in a statement on December 2.
The brutality of the crackdown prompted Badri Hosseini Khamenei, the estranged sister of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to publish a letter on December 6 expressing sympathy with mothers who have lost their loved ones because of their opposition to the Islamic republic in the last four decades and declared that she opposes the actions of her brother.
Badri Khamenei’s daughter and the supreme leader’s niece, Farideh Moradkhani, was arrested a week ago after being summoned to Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Prosecutor's Office.
Badri Khamenei noted her daughter's violent arrest saying that, if she was taken into custody this way, “it is clear that they will inflict thousands of times more violence on the oppressed sons and daughters of others." (SJ/RFE)
