Iran’s regime seeks to stop protests takes protesters to the gallows

While the world was experiencing the dramatic final of the World Cup in which Argentina once again took over the FIFA World Cup in Doha, after beating France 4-2 on penalties, after equalizing 3-3 in the 120 minutesIn Iran, soccer player Amir Nasr-Azadani awaits his death sentence in prison.

Amir Nasr-Azadani26-year-old defender of the Iranjavan football club was sentenced to death for “enmity towards God”.

Along with him, a doctor and a rapper are also among more than 20 Iranians who could be hanged after a death sentence, a scare tactic by the regime to quell protests, human rights groups say.

The first two executions linked to the Iranian protest movement, those of Mohsen Shekari, on December 8and that of Majidreza Rahnavard, on December 12, both 23 years old, have provoked protests and new Western sanctions, especially since Rahnavard was hanged in public and not in prison.

However, activists are calling for strong international action to prevent further executions.

To support that activism, Shakira recalled Amir on her networks this Sunday. “Today, in the World Cup final, I just hope that the players on the field and the whole world remember that there is a man and a football partner named Amir Nasr, on death row, just for speaking up. of women’s rights”, said the Colombian singer.

For the crime against the sharia, two people have already been hanged for their involvement in the protests that are shaking the Islamic Republic of Iran and which has its roots in the sharia or Islamic law.

Defense of women’s rights, the sin of Amir Nasr

The protests started at the death of Mahsa Amini after being arrested by the Morale Police for not wearing the Islamic veil properly in September, but the protesters are now calling for the end of the Islamic Republic founded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979.

After almost three months of mobilizations, with more than 400 deaths and thousands of arrests, the authorities have begun to execute protesters to try to control mobilizations led mainly by young people and women, who are asking for more freedoms.

Iran, lives more than 40 years under the Islamic Revolution

And the main crime of which the two executed to death and nine other prisoners who are on death row have been accused is “moharebe”, which can be translated as “enmity against god”, “enmity with god” or “war against god”.

“Islam says that ‘mohareb’ – the person who commits ‘moharebe’ – is one who violates the divine and heavenly law, which is the sharia,” explains the cleric Jalal Mohebí to Efe, in the Saleh sanctuary in northern Tehran.

The octogenarian cleric maintains that “human law can contain errors, because human beings can make mistakes, but God cannot” and hence the importance of “God’s laws”.

Execution of Mohsen Shekari

On a more earthly level, Mohebí defines as “mohareb” someone who “attacks other human beings, blocks streets or squares, organizes riots and creates terror and insecurity among the population” and thus appears in article 279 of the Islamic Penal Code. from the Persian country

Those are the crimes for which he was 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari executed on 8 Decemberin the first execution of a person for participating in the protests.

Shekari wounded a basiji – an Islamic militant – with a knife, who needed 13 stitches, blocked a street and created terror in Tehran, according to the Iranian Justice, which led to the accusation and conviction for “enmity against God”.

That execution sparked a wave of international criticism.in addition to the doubts of the accelerated judicial process, for the hanging of a person for injuring another.

But that is the punishment provided for the “mohareb” in Iranian law and that Mohebi defends as “adequate.”

“God himself in the Koran, which is the book of God and the word of God, has clearly determined the punishments for the ‘mohareb’,” explains Mohebi, who is the representative in northern Tehran of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

And it lists the punishments: “kill them, or hang them, cut off their right hand and left foot or the other way around, or banishment”, which is included in the Iranian Penal Code in its article 282.

They returned to public execution

Just four days after the first execution, Majid Reza Rahnavard, also 23, was publicly hanged for the alleged murder of two Basijis in Mashad (northeast), after being convicted in a one-day trial for “enmity against god”.

Public execution is a procedure that had fallen into disuse in recent years in Iran in an attempt to improve the image of the country, one of the world’s leading developers of the death penalty, with 314 executions -most for crimes of drugs – in 2021, according to Amnesty International.

That execution once again provoked a barrage of criticism and now there are fears for the lives of nine other prisoners who have been sentenced to the maximum sentence, the majority for “enmity against god” for creating terror among the population, damaging public property and injuring or killing security agents.

Prison for demonstrating

Furthermore, in Tehran alone, 400 people have been sentenced to between two and 10 years in prison for their participation in the protests.

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or the UN have denounced the trials as “farces”, “unfair” and “revenge”, while numerous Western countries have criticized the sentences.

Even an association of reformist clerics, the Assembly of Teachers and Researchers of the Qom Seminary, expressed concern about the executions and the use of the charge of “enmity against god.”

“Citizens who exercise their right to protest against the unfair situation in the country and defend themselves against the violence of the agents cannot be considered mohareb”, ithe group said in a statement.

However, the Iranian authorities remain unfazed by such criticism. (YO)

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