by Monica Ricci Sargentini
Mashallah Karami and his wife’s video appeal is a cry of pain. The 22-year-old boy could be the next to go to the gallows
Mehdi Mohammad Karami’s life hangs by a thread. He could be the third Iranian to be executed in connection with the protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini. The young man, 22, was one of five people sentenced to death for causing the death of a paramilitary during a memorial service honoring a protester in Karaj, near Tehran. He himself said to his father in a phone call from prison last December 7: Our son called us and said: “Dad, you have passed the verdict. They sentenced us to death.” He cried and begged me not to tell his mother, Mashallah Karami told the Iranian newspaper Etemad.
The distraught family decided to go all out by posting a video appeal on social media. To address the father first, who was sitting cross-legged on a rug, his face sad, his eyes almost closed, never looking at the camera: My name is Mashallah Karami. I am a street vendor. My son, Mehdi Mohammad Karami, a karate master, won many awards and was a member of the national team. I respectfully and kindly ask the judicial authorities, I beg them to abolish my son’s death penalty. Beside him, his wife looks petrified. Arms crossed like cradling a baby. When her husband has finished speaking, she too repeats the request to the judges as if it were a saving grace.
The boy’s trial lasted less than a week and was deemed unfair by many human rights organizations. Mr Karami said the family lawyer was prevented from defending the boy and the lawyer in charge never answered the family’s phone calls.
At least 26 people arrested during the protests are at risk of hanging, according to Amnesty International. Tehran has been accused of using the death penalty as a weapon to intimidate the population and silence the streets after the death of Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish girl who died at the hands of vice squads in mid-September due to a misplaced veil.
According to the United Nations, 14,000 people have been arrested so far and 469 have been killed, including 63 children and 29 women, according to Iran Human Rights.
December 20, 2022 (change December 20, 2022 | 22:46)
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