Iran hanged three men in Qom on Thursday, accusing them of involvement in the killing of two police officers during the January protests, the judiciary’s Mizan news agency announced.
“Three individuals convicted in the Dey [January] unrest, on charges of murder and operational actions in favour of the Zionist regime and the United States, were hanged this morning,” Mizan Online published on Thursday.
Mehdi Ghasemi, Saleh Mohammadi, and Saeed Davoudi were accused of attacking the officers with knives and swords, according to the London-based opposition outlet Iran International.
Mohammadi, 19, was famed in Iran for his professional wrestling career, having won the country's bronze medal at the Saytiyev International Cup in Russia.
The Hengaw human rights organization reported that the men gave their confessions after being tortured, and they were found guilty despite there being no witnesses, evidence, or CCTV that placed them at the scene, in addition to their families testifying they were elsewhere. An informed source told Amnesty International that Mohammadi had suffered a hand fracture due after being beaten.
The executions came a day after the regime put to death a man accused of spying for Israel. Kourosh Keyvani, a Swedish-Iranian national, was accused of handing over “images and information of sensitive locations” to Israel’s Mossad.
The Islamic regime has advanced the narrative that foreign-backed rioters were behind the unrest. It told the United Nations that 3,117 people were killed during the protests, while human rights groups say tens of thousands were killed by Iran’s own security forces.
Despite initially striking a more understanding tone toward the demonstrations, which broke out in response to the country’s financial crisis, the regime quickly moved to suppress them, arresting tens of thousands and opening fire on crowds.
Having since abandoned the consolitory tone, Iran’s police chief Ahmadreza Radan warned last week that “anyone taking into streets at the enemy’s request will be confronted as an enemy not protestor.”
Iran violating international due process, fair rights trial
The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on Iran warned this week that several detainees held over the January protests “face execution, in violation of international due process and fair trial rights and the right to life.” Amnesty International placed the number of those at risk at 30, including two minors.
“The Iranian authorities are once again laying bare the depth of their disregard for the right to life and justice by threatening expedited executions and imposing death sentences in fast-tracked trials, only weeks after arrest," said Diana Eltahawy, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International. "In weaponizing the death penalty, they are seeking to instill fear and crush the spirit of a population demanding fundamental change."
“Children and young adults form the bulk of those caught in the machinery of state repression following the January protests, denied access to effective legal representation and subjected to torture or other ill-treatment and incommunicado detention to extract forced ‘confessions'," she said.
"The international community must take coordinated global action, pressuring the Iranian authorities to stop using the court system as a conveyor belt for executions.”
Last year saw a sharp rise in executions in Iran. By December, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran reported that authorities had killed more than 2,000 people, the highest known number since the 1980s.