Authorities in Iran have executed three people sentenced to death in connection with nationwide anti-government protests last year, the judiciary says.
All three were convicted in November of their involvement in a shooting attack in Isfahan that killed three security personnel.
Amnesty International says he was subjected to an unfair trial and allegedly tortured.
Four other protesters have been executed since December.
Dozens more have reportedly been sentenced to death or charged with major crimes.
Protests erupted across the Islamic Republic after the death in custody of Mehsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was detained by morality police in Tehran in September for allegedly “improperly” wearing a hijab.
The three executed on Friday – Majid Kazmi, Saleh Mirhashmi, 30, and Saeed Yaqoubi, 37 – were arrested after protests in the central city of Isfahan on November 16, during which two members of the Basij paramilitary force and a police officer were Shot dead
Sources told Amnesty International that the men were forcibly disappeared, then tortured and forced to make incriminating statements that formed the basis of criminal cases against them.
The interrogators allegedly suspended Kazmi upside down, showed him a video of him torturing his brother, subjected him to ridicule and threatened to kill his brothers.
In an audio message from inside the Dastgard prison, where the three men are being held, Kazimi is heard saying: “I am innocent by God, I had no weapon. They [security forces] would have killed me.” Stay and give orders. I say that this weapon is mine.
“I told them I’ll say whatever I want, just leave my family alone.”
A revolutionary court convicted Kazemi and two others of “enmity against God,” a vaguely defined national security charge, and sentenced them to death in January after activists said That it was a four-day trial.
According to the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), they were denied the ability to prepare an adequate defense, prosecutors relied on coerced “confessions” and the indictment was “riddled with irregularities that reveal It was a politically motivated case.”
Last week, authorities announced that the Supreme Court had upheld their convictions.
“The use of the death penalty against these individuals is an act of retaliation against a brave generation of protesters who have steadfastly demanded the rights of the Iranian people over the past seven months,” Amnesty’s deputy Middle East director Diana al-Tahawi said in a statement. have been.” on Wednesday.
“The shocking manner in which these protesters were tried and sentenced by Iran’s judicial system, amid torture-laden ‘confessions’, serious procedural flaws and a lack of evidence, is yet another example of the Iranian authorities”. A brazen disregard for the rights to life and fair trial.”
UN human rights chief Volker Türk last week expressed dismay at what he described as an “appallingly high number of executions” in Iran this year.
At least 209 people have been executed so far this year – more than 10 per week – mostly for drug-related crimes, he said, citing UN sources, calling it “an abomination.” Record”.
