Tehran: Three men who were sentenced to death in connection to last year’s anti-government protests in Iran were executed by the authorities on Friday, the judiciary announced.
Majid Kazemi (30), Saleh Mirhashemi (36) and Saeed Yaqoubi (37) were arrested in the city of Isfahan on November 16, 2022, the BBC reported.
They were convicted over their alleged involvement in an attack which killed two Basij paramilitary force members and a police officer during a protest in the city.
Last week, the authorities announced that the Supreme Court had upheld their sentences.
According to Amnesty International, the three men were subjected to unfair trials and allegedly tortured.
“The use of the death penalty against these men is a blatant act of vengeance against a courageous generation of protesters for steadfastly demanding the rights of Iranian people during the past seven months,” the BBC quoted Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty’s Middle East deputy director, as saying said in a statement.
“The shocking manner in which the trial and sentencing of these protesters was fast-tracked through Iran’s judicial system amid the use of torture-tainted ‘confessions’, serious procedural flaws, and a lack of evidence, is another example of the Iranian authorities’ brazen disregard for the rights to life and fair trial.”
Protests gripped Iran following the custodial death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was detained by morality police in Tehran in September 2022 for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly”.
Dozens of protesters have reportedly been sentenced to death or charged with capital offences for taking part in the nationwide demonstrations.
Since December 2022, four other protesters were executed.
–IANS