Iran on Thursday (8 December) executed a man accused of injuring a paramilitary force after he blocked traffic on a street in Tehran during unrest that has been sweeping the country for nearly three months, according to the report Mizan Online, the press agency of the judiciary.
“Mohsen Shekari, a rioter who blocked Sattar Khan Boulevard on September 25 and stabbed a Bassij in the left shoulder, was executed in Tehran on Thursday morning,” Mizan Online specifies. A total of eleven people risk the same fate for their participation in the riots.
According to the Judiciary News Agency, the preliminary verdict was issued by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on November 1 and the appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court on November 20, making the verdict enforceable. The judicial authority specifies that Mohsen Shekari was found guilty of “fighting and drawing his weapon with the intention of killing, causing terror and disturbing the order and security of society”. “He intentionally stabbed a Bassij while performing his duty and blocked Sattar Khan Street in Tehran,” the agency added.
“The Iranian regime’s contempt for humanity knows no bounds,” said Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Thursday. Mohsen Shekari “was tried and executed in a treacherous and hasty trial for disagreeing with the regime,” the minister tweeted. “But the threat of execution will not stifle people’s desire for freedom,” she added.
Paris noted that “this execution comes on top of other serious and unacceptable violations,” Quai d’Orsay spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said during a news conference. “We recall our strongest ties to the right to peacefully demonstrate,” she added, stressing that the protesters’ aspirations “are legitimate and must be heard.”
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Unprecedented protest
Iran is the scene of protests sparked by the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who died after being arrested by vice squads for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code had, including the wearing of veils for women.
Authorities denouncing “unrest” routinely accuse the United States and its Western allies, as well as foreign-based Kurdish groups, of instigating this unprecedented protest movement.
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