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The Iranian authorities have executed three people who were convicted by the judiciary on charges related to the demonstrations that took place in the country last year.
The court convicted the three of involvement in attacks and shootings during the demonstrations, which led to the killing of three policemen, in Isfahan, last November.
Amnesty International said they were tortured and did not receive a fair trial.
This brings the number of those executed since the end of last year on charges related to the demonstrations to seven, and the judiciary has sentenced dozens to death or harsh penalties.
Iran witnessed huge demonstrations after the death of Mahsa Amini, while she was under arrest by the morality police, on the pretext of not adhering to appropriate dress, before she reached the age of 23, but the death of the Iranian Kurdish citizen ignited a wave of demonstrations that lasted for several months.
And the execution was carried out on Friday, against Majid Kazemi, who was 30 years old, and Saleh Mirhashmi, 36, and Saeed Yaqubi, 37, and the authorities had arrested them during demonstrations in the heart of Isfahan last November, during which two of them were killed. Basij forces, and one policeman.
Sources told Amnesty International that the three were subjected to enforced disappearance, torture, and forced confessions, which made their sentences more harsh.
According to reports, Kazemi was hung upside down, and his torturers showed him a clip of his brother being tortured, and carried out a mock execution during the clip, and threatened to kill all his brothers.
In an audio message from inside Dastgard prison, where the three were being held, Kazemi was heard saying, “I swear by God that I am innocent, and I had no weapon, but they kept beating me, and forced me to confess to having a weapon.”
He added, “I told them that I would confess to anything, in return for leaving my family alone.”
Kazemi and his two colleagues were convicted by a revolutionary court of “haraba” in January, after a trial that lasted only four days.
According to the US-based Iranian Human Rights Center, the three convicts were denied their right to defend themselves, in the face of the accusations leveled by the prosecution, which relied on confessions extracted under torture, “and it was distorted and full of legal loopholes, which show that the trial was politicized.”
Last week, the authorities announced that the Supreme Court upheld their sentences.
“Issuing the death sentence against these three is a clear act of revenge against the brave generation of demonstrators who stood strong to take away the rights of the Iranian people over the past months,” said Diana Eltahawy, Deputy Director of Amnesty International in the Middle East.
She added, “The shocking speed with which charges were brought, and the trial ended, can be considered a distortion of the heart of the judicial system in Iran, in addition to the use of confessions under torture, which are errors that completely spoil the trial, in addition to the lack of evidence, which is another indication of the Iranian authorities’ lack of respect for the rights of citizens.” and justice of the judiciary.
Last week, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Human Rights Organization, Volker Türk, condemned what he called the “alarmingly increasing number of executions” in Iran this year.
He quoted UN sources as saying that 209 people were executed this year, at a rate of more than ten executions per week, the majority of them for drug convictions, which Türk considered an “appalling record”.
