Iran publicly carries out second execution linked to nationwide protests
Majidreza Rahnavard, 23, was convicted of killing two members of security forces.
Iranian authorities on Monday publicly hanged a man who had been convicted of killing two members of security forces during the anti-government protests in the country, reported the BBC. This is the second execution in less than a week.
The judiciary’s news website announced that 23-year-old Majidreza Rahnavard was executed in the city of Mashhad. He was sentenced to death by an Iranian court for allegedly killing two members of the Basij Resistance Force, a paramilitary force, and wounding four others.
The Basij force are affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and have been at the forefront of the state crackdown on protests.
“Rahnavard was sentenced to death based on coerced confessions, after a grossly unfair process and a show trial,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Norway-based Iran Human Rights, said in a tweet. “This crime must be met with serious consequences for the Islamic Republic. Thousands of detained protesters, and a dozen death sentences already issued. There is a serious risk of mass-execution of protesters.”
Protests have swept Iran for nearly three months since 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini died after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran for an alleged breach of the country’s strict hijab dress code for women.
Officials say she died of heart attack while in custody but critics believe she was physically assaulted on accusations of violating the hijab mandate.
On December 8, Iran executed the first detainee linked with the protests, a 23-year-old named Mohsen Shekari. He was convicted and sentenced to death for blocking a street and wounding a paramilitary officer during the early phase of the protests in mid-September.