Iran has hanged three men for allegedly killing members of the country’s security forces during last year’s anti-regime protests, defying domestic and international calls not to carry out the executions.
Mizan news agency, affiliated to Iran’s judiciary, said Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kazemi Sheikh Shabani and Saeed Yaghoubi Kordsofla were executed in the early hours of Friday.
The three men were said to have “co-ordinated” their “terrorist” acts and shot dead three members of the security forces in the central city of Isfahan in November, crimes which carry the charge of moharebeh — or fighting against God.
The US state department urged Iran on Thursday not to execute the men. Pro-reform Iranians had also started a campaign on social media urging authorities not to carry out the death sentences against them.
“It’s just so brutal,” said Nasrin, a 63-year-old woman. “This once again shows authorities have no mercy on their opponents.”
Last year’s unrest, which sparked some of the biggest and longest-lasting protests since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, was triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman in police custody after she was accused of not observing the mandatory Islamic dress code.
Hundreds died in towns and cities across the country in the violence that followed, but Iran’s leaders vowed there would be no significant retreat from their hardline policies.
Four men were executed after the protests came to an end late last year, but analysts said the authorities had paused further hangings and pardoned thousands of prisoners accused of taking part in the unrest after coming under domestic and international pressure.
Friday’s executions, however, have revived fears among Iranian moderates that others on death row — the exact number is unclear — could face the gallows.
“The Islamic republic — rightly or wrongly — not only feels in control but even more powerful than before the protests,” said one reformist analyst, adding that the opposition outside Iran had failed to offer an alternative to the Tehran regime in Tehran.
Iran’s military and clerical leaders have accused foreign governments, notably the US and Israel, of engineering the anti-regime protests and claim they are using Iranian opposition groups outside the country to foment unrest. Opposition figures have dismissed the claims.
The three men executed on Friday were charged with links to the Mujahedin-e Khalq organisation, an exiled Iranian opposition group which for decades has been committed to bringing down the regime in Tehran.
Domestic media reported that the defendants had been “directly” in touch with senior figures in the MEK, and had received guidance from them. According to the reports, the three men had been armed and had made Molotov cocktails to attack public places.
“They killed some people and by law have to be hanged,” said a woman in Tehran who supported the regime. “Shall we let them kill more? Officials should not be scared of online campaigns.”
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