Iran has announced the first execution of a protester convicted of recent anti-government unrest.
Mohsin Shikari was executed early Thursday after a revolutionary court convicted him of “enmity against God,” JEE News reported.
He was accused of leading a “riot” that blocked a main road in Tehran in September and wounded a member of the paramilitary force with a knife.
One activist said he was convicted after a “show trial without due process”.
Mahmoud Amiri Moghdad, Norway-based director of Iran Human Rights, tweeted that daily executions of protesters would begin unless Iranian authorities faced “swift practical consequences at the international level.”
A revolutionary court was told that Mohsin Shikari blocked Tehran’s Sattar Khan Street on September 25 and used a knife to attack a member of the Basij resistance force, the judiciary’s Meezan news agency reported. , is a volunteer paramilitary force that is often deployed to quell protests.
Meezan said that on November 1, the court found Shikari guilty of “fighting and drawing weapons with intent to kill, spread terror and disrupt the order of society” and convicted him of “enmity against God”. .
He appealed the decision, but it was upheld by the Supreme Court on November 20.
The judiciary has so far announced that revolutionary courts have sentenced 10 others to death for “enmity against God” or “corruption on earth” in connection with the protests. The identity of the accused has not been disclosed.
Amnesty International said the death sentences were designed to “further suppress popular rebellion” and “instill fear among the masses”.
It added that revolutionary courts “serve to deliver harsh sentences after highly unfair trials influenced by security and intelligence forces that are marked by summary and largely secret procedures”.
Protests against Iran’s clerical establishment erupted in mid-September, following the death in custody of Mehsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was “wrongfully” detained by morality police for allegedly wearing a hijab, or headscarf. I took
The women-led protests have spread to 160 cities in all 31 provinces of the country and are seen as one of the most serious challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.
Iran’s leaders have described them as “riots” fomented by the country’s foreign enemies and ordered security forces to “deal decisively” with them.
According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), at least 475 protesters have been killed and 18,240 detained so far. It also reported the death of 61 security personnel.
