Today (Saturday) Iran executed two young men aged 20 and 22 who were hanged after being accused of allegedly “murdering” a member of the security forces during one of the demonstrations in a city west of Tehran. Despite international efforts to cancel the execution of the two protesters, Iran’s Supreme Court upheld the sentence.
“Mohammed Mehdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, the main perpetrators of the crime that led to the unjust martyrdom of Rohollah Ajmian were hanged this morning,” the judiciary said in a statement published on the official Iranian news agency IRNA. The same security officer who was killed in the demonstration was a member of the Basij militia linked to the Revolutionary Guards in Iran.
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Karami, 21, was an Iranian-Kurdish karate champion who had the Olympic rings tattooed on the inside of his arm. His cousin told CNN that Karami was a brave and intelligent boy who took up karate at the age of 11. He joined Iran’s youth team and later won the national championships.
Karami’s lawyer tweeted that Karami was not given final rights to speak with his family before his execution. The lawyer added that Karami began a hunger strike on Wednesday to protest that Agassi was not allowed to represent him.
Last month, Karami’s parents posted a video on social media in which they begged the state to spare his life. His father said, “My son is among Iran’s karate champions and has several national titles and was the fourth-ranked member of the Iranian national team… I am asking you to please remove the execution order.”
Amnesty International reported that the court that convicted Karami relied on confessions obtained under duress and his family claims that he was tortured and denied access to a lawyer. Hosseini’s lawyer also said that Hosseini was subjected to severe torture and that confessions extracted under torture have no legal basis. According to him, Hosseini was beaten with his hands and feet tied, kicked in the head until he passed out, and subjected to electric shocks in various parts of his body.
Iran denies that the confessions were obtained through torture.
Meanwhile, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, today appointed the tough police official Ahmad Raza Radan as the new national police chief, media in the country reported.
Raden, who was sanctioned by the US in 2010 for human rights abuses, frequently called for strict enforcement of the country’s Islamic dress code for women in his previous police posts. Iran sees the suppression of the protests as preserving “national sovereignty”.
Rights group HRANA said that as of Friday, 517 protesters had been killed during the unrest, including 70 minors. It was also reported that 68 members of the security forces were killed. Apparently up to 19,262 protesters were arrested. Iranian officials said up to 300 people, including members of the security forces, were killed during the protests.