Reports reaching the desk of Africa Today News, New York recalls that Iran had on Saturday executed two men for killing a paramilitary force member during unprecedented protests sparked by the death in custody of a young woman.
The most recent hangings bring the total number of executions since the statewide demonstrations began in mid-September and escalated into demands for the overthrow of Iran’s clerical rule to four.
In December, two individuals were executed, resulting in widespread anger and fresh Western sanctions against Iran.
Judicial news agency Mizan Online reported, ‘Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, the main perpetrators of the crime that led to the martyrdom of Ruhollah Ajamian, were hanged this morning.’
Prosecutors said the 27-year-old militiaman was stripped naked and killed by a group of mourners who had been paying tribute to a slain protester, Hadis Najafi.
The executions come in defiance of a campaign by international rights groups for the lives of the two men to be spared. Karami’s father had also begged the judiciary not to kill his son.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR), said both men “were subjected to torture, sentenced after sham trials… without the minimum standards for due process.”
Like other activists, he called for stronger international action after the latest executions.
On Twitter, Amiry-Moghaddam specifically urged “new and stronger sanctions against individuals and entities.”
Authorities have arrested thousands of people in the wave of demonstrations that began with the September death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22.
Africa Today News, New York reports that the Iranian Kurdish woman had been arrested by morality police for allegedly breaching the regime’s strict dress code for women.
Ajamian belonged to the Basij paramilitary force linked to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
He died in Karaj, west of Tehran, on November 3 after being attacked with “knives, stones, fists, kicks” and dragged along a street, a judiciary spokesman said at the time.