On Monday, Iran hanged a second prisoner who had been caught and found guilty during widespread anti-theocratic riots, broadcasting video on state television that it said showed him fatally stabbing two security force officers and fleeing.
Majidreza Rahnavard was publicly hanged less than a month after he allegedly carried out the fatal stabbings, allegedly out of rage over security forces killing protesters. This demonstrates how quickly Iran now carries out death sentences awarded to those detained during the protests the government is trying to suppress.
Activists caution that at least a dozen individuals have already received death sentences in secret trials. According to Human Rights Activists in Iran, an organization that has been keeping track of the protests, at least 488 people have died since the demonstrations started in mid-September. Authorities have apprehended another 18,200 persons.
According to Iran’s judiciary-run Mizan news agency, Rahnavard is accused of fatally stabbing two members of the country’s security forces on November 17 in Mashhad while also injuring four others. The execution, according to the agency, took place in Mashhad on Monday morning in broad daylight.
On camera, a guy was seen following another person around a street corner before standing over him and stabbing him when the other person tripped and fell against a parked motorcycle. Another saw the same guy quickly following by stabbing another. The attacker, who state TV identified as Rahnavard, then ran away.
The deceased were “student” Basij, paramilitary recruits for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to the Mizan article. In numerous instances, the demonstrators have retaliated when the Basij (pronounced “ba-SEEJ”) have deployed in large cities, assaulting and arresting them.
After Rahnavard’s execution, a carefully edited official television broadcast that included him in court aired. He claims in the video that he started to despise the Basijis after seeing videos of the police assaulting and murdering demonstrators posted on social media.
Rahnavard was charged in the Mizan report with attempting to leave his country of detention.
Shiite holy city Mashhad is situated about 460 miles (or 740 kilometers) east of Tehran, the capital of Iran. In the midst of the turmoil that started when Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had been held by Iran’s morality police, passed away in detention on September 16 there have reportedly been strikes, shuttered stores, and rallies.
According to Mizan, the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad found Rahnavard guilty. The tribunals have drawn criticism from throughout the world for not letting people who are being tried choose their own attorneys or even examine the evidence against them.
Rahnavard had been found guilty of “moharebeh,” which is Farsi for “waging war against God.” Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, this accusation has been brought against others and carries a death sentence.
One of the most brutal countries in the world, Iran regularly hangs its inmates to death. On Thursday, it executed the first prisoner taken amid protests.
The execution of one prisoner should be “finished “in the shortest feasible period” and his death sentence should be carried out in public as “a heart-warming gesture for the security forces,” according to a document acquired by Amnesty International.
In addition to the upheaval, Iran is experiencing a severe economic crisis that has caused the rial, the country’s currency, to reach unprecedented lows versus the dollar.
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