(Paris) Iran, already one of the countries executing the most convicts in the world, intends to use the death penalty to stop the protest movement by creating a climate of fear in the population, denounce NGOs.
Justice has already pronounced six death sentences since the beginning of the demonstrations linked to the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurd arrested for violating the dress code.
This number is expected to increase since, according to Amnesty International, at least 21 people are currently on trial for crimes punishable by hanging.
Iran is the most executed country in the world outside of China, according to human rights groups. At least 314 people were put to death there in 2021 according to the NGO, while the group Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Norway, reports more than 482 executions this year.
For Amnesty, the “show trials” organized in recent weeks by the authorities are “intended to intimidate those who participate in the popular uprising and to dissuade others from joining the movement”.
This strategy aims to “instill fear in the population”, adds the organization, which castigates “a frightening escalation in the use of the death penalty as a tool of political repression”.
“Enemies of God”
Iranian justice has refrained from making public the names of the six people convicted, probably in order to avoid personalized campaigns on social networks.
Courts found convicts guilty of being ‘enemies of God’ (‘mohareb’ in Persian) or ‘corruption on earth’ (‘efsad-e fel arz’), according to the Authority’s agency judicial Mizan Online.
Based on ongoing court proceedings, Amnesty has released the names of the six convicted. Among them is Mohammad Ghobadlou, a young man whose mother appeared on social media pleading emotionally for her son’s life.
Among the list of 21 people threatened with the death penalty are Farzaneh Ghare-Hasanlou and her husband, Hamid, a doctor, according to Amnesty. As well as Saman Seydi, alias Saman Yasin, a Tehran rapper from the Kurdish minority, who supported the protest on social networks and is accused of having shot in the air.
NGOs are concerned about the particularly high proportion of members of ethnic minorities, such as the Kurds or the Baluchis from the south-east of the country, among those sentenced to death.
In this tense context, human rights groups are urging the international community to launch joint action to try to convince the Iranian regime to stop the executions.
The topic is expected to come up during a rare session on Iran at the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday.
“Wall of Fear”
“Unless the international community sends a very, very strong message to the Islamic Republic, we are going to face mass executions,” IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam warned at World Congress against the death penalty in Berlin.
He highlighted not only political executions, but also “those with less political weight, especially related to drug trafficking”.
Faced with this upsurge in hangings, mobilization against the death penalty has grown over the past year in Iran and abroad, particularly on social networks with the keyword #edam_nakon (“do not execute” in Persian). ), which went viral.
Among the Iranians languishing in jails is director Mohammad Rasoulof, whose film on the death penalty the devil does not exist won the Golden Bear at the Berlin festival in 2020. He was arrested before the start of the dispute.
“The Islamic Republic has used the death penalty to consolidate the wall of fear for 43 years”, and the Islamic revolution of 1979, underlines Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. “The current protests have torn down this wall, but the authorities are trying to rebuild it with repression and death sentences. »