Iran has been in a tense few months after the deaths of hundreds of protesters taking part in protests that have rocked the country in the past two months, following the killing of Mahsa Amini by the morality police for not taking the veil well placed. The family of Amini, a woman of Kurdish origin, said she was brutally tortured from the moment she was forced into the police van. Security forces said he suffered a heart attack, but thousands of people did not swallow it. The crackdown has led to hundreds of deaths and, in fact, a new law authorizes the courts to sentence protesters arrested these days to death. The violence would have left more than 400 dead and iconic scenes, such as protesters burning Khomeini’s house museum in his hometown or thousands of women burning their veils. Many athletes have shown their support for the protesters, with players from the beach soccer or volleyball team making the gesture of cutting off a piece of their hair, one of the gestures that have gone global against the regime. At the World Cup in Qatar, most players refused to sing the national anthem in protest. And in the Iran-United States match, supporters of the regime attacked other Iranians who carried banners commemorating the figure of Mahsa Amini.
Two executed
Iran has already executed two people for taking part in protests against the theocratic regime. According to the official Mizan agency, one of them would be Majireza Rahnavard, a young man accused of stabbing two members of the security forces during a protest on November 17 in the city of Mashhad. Rahnavarard worked as a clerk in a fruit shop, and a few days ago he was visited in prison by his mother. “She was not told anything about the execution and the mother left with a smile, thinking her son would be released soon. His body was found this morning when Islamic Republic forces were secretly burying him,” he said. denounce on Twitter the group of activists 1500 Tasvir, a group that has been anonymously denouncing the repression since November 2018. Earlier Mohsen Shekari, also 23 years old, had been executed after three days of general strike. Shekari, who his uncle said appeared before the court that convicted him with obvious signs of torture, was convicted of “waging war against God” for erecting barricades and wounding a member of the pro-regime militia Basij. The authorities are punishing some groups that had stood out in the protests, such as athletes, football fans or hip-hop singers. One of them, Toomaj Salehi, could also be sentenced to death.
The opposition website IranWire reports that a total of 28 protesters have been sentenced to death since the protests began, almost three months ago. The human rights group Human Rights Activists in Iran has identified 488 deaths (including 68 minors) in the crackdown on protests, where at least 18,259 people have been arrested. This is the main challenge to the Ayatollahs’ regime in its 43-year history.
