Paris —
At least 29 loss of life row prisoners have been hanged in at some point in Iran on Wednesday, together with 26 in a mass execution at one jail, a rights group stated, a day after the nation confronted worldwide condemnation over the execution of males linked to the 2022 protests.
The Norway-based Iranian Human Rights Group stated 26 folks have been executed at Gezel Hesar jail in Karaj, outdoors Tehran, and three others at a jail within the metropolis of Karaj.
Those executed included two Afghan nationals and had been convicted of homicide, drug-related and rape offences.
Other human rights teams, together with the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) and the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), additionally confirmed the execution of at the very least 24 folks in Karaj.
Rights teams have repeatedly accused Iran, which executes extra folks every year than any nation besides China, of utilizing the loss of life penalty for any offence to sow worry in society within the wake of the 2022 protests.
“Unless the worldwide group responds instantly, a whole lot of individuals may fall sufferer to the Islamic Republic’s killing machine within the coming months,” stated IHR Director Mahmoud Amiri Moghadam.
The IHR harassed {that a} mass execution on such a scale was unprecedented in Iran in current historical past, with the final such incident courting again to 2009.
‘Abhorrent and arbitrary executions’
Rights teams additionally condemned the Iranian authorities’s execution of a person convicted of killing a Revolutionary Guard member throughout protests in 2022, with activists alleging the person’s confession was obtained via torture.
Gholamreza Rasaei, who’s in his mid-30s, is the tenth particular person executed in Iran in reference to months of protests that erupted in September 2022 following the loss of life in custody of Mahsa Amini.
Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, was arrested for allegedly violating the nation’s strict costume code for girls.
According to Mizan Online, the Iranian judiciary web site, Rasaei was convicted of murdering the SS colonel and executed by hanging in a jail within the western metropolis of Kermanshah on Tuesday.
Amnesty International stated Rasaei, a member of the Kurdish Yarsan sect, was executed in secret and with out prior discover to his household or attorneys, and that his household was pressured to bury his physique in a distant space removed from their dwelling.
She stated the execution was one other instance of Iran “utilizing the loss of life penalty as a instrument of political repression to instil worry amongst its folks.”
Amnesty stated his loss of life sentence was handed down in October 2023 “after a grossly unfair trial based mostly on pressured ‘confessions’ obtained via torture and different ill-treatment, together with beatings, electrical shocks, suffocation and sexual violence.”
‘Unfair and inhumane’
The French Foreign Ministry on Wednesday condemned Rasaei’s execution and reiterated its “unchanging opposition to the loss of life penalty everywhere and circumstances,” calling it an “unjust and inhuman punishment.”
The workplace of US deputy particular envoy for Iran, Avram Paley, accused Iran of subjecting protesters to “sham trials and compelled confessions”.
According to the IHR, the decide ignored Rasaei’s testimony in courtroom that his confession was obtained via torture, and likewise rejected the testimony of two consultants, together with a forensic report, which stated he couldn’t have been concerned within the killing.
The IHR added that at the very least 345 folks have been executed in Iran this yr alone and that the newest execution exhibits no easing up on executions since reformist President Massoud Pezechkian took workplace final week.
Amiri Moghadam stated Iran was “exploiting” international consideration on tensions between Iran and arch rival Israel by “mass killings of prisoners and intensifying repression inside Iran”.