Human rights criticises Iran’s death sentences on protesters

The Islamic Republic of Iran, having records of increasing death sentences on protesters being high-ranked world’s top executioners, has received criticism from human rights activists saying the regime has taken capital punishment to a new level.

Human rights activists warn there’s a high risk that many of them stand to join the list of persons to be executed by the Islamic Republic. Presently, about 43 people are facing execution in Iran, according to a CNN count, but activist group 1500Tasvir says the number could be as high as 100.

Last weekend, Iran executed two more protesters charged with killing security personnel, causing an international outcry. Critics said that the executions resulted from hasty sham trials. Records show that the regime executed 314 people in 2021, 20% more than the previous year, rights group Amnesty International said in a report from May 2022. Many of those had to do with drug-related crimes.

According to activists, 2023 has already shown records of several protesters entangled in Iran’s court system, many of whom face an unjust judicial process.

“Defendants are systematically deprived of access to lawyers of their choice during the trial, are subjected to tortured and coerced confessions and then rushed to the gallows,” Tara Sepehri Far, an Iran researcher at Human Rights Watch, told CNN. On Tuesday, United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk accused Iran of weaponising criminal procedures, saying it amounts to state-sanctioned killing.

With this round of protests, critics say, the authorities are using charges that carry the death penalty more liberally than before, widening the application of such laws to cover protesters. According to Iranian state media, dozens of government agents, from security officials to officers of the Basij paramilitary force, have died in the protests. Activist groups HRANA and Iran Human Rights said that 481 protesters had been killed.

Security personnel has died in previous protests as well, Sepehri Far said, “but it is crucial to point out in this time round Iranian authorities are using the death penalty way beyond the intentional killing of security officers.”

The regime appears to have capitalized on the executions, using them as a deterrent to people eager to speak out and flood the streets, as was seen after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini in the nation’s custody’s morality police.

“The trials and executions are yet another piece of the repression machine showing power and control and spread fear and publicise the government’s narrative about protesters,” Sepehri Far explained. According to the UN Office of Human Rights, Iran has used Islamic Sharia law to prosecute protesters with crimes carrying the death penalty, namely “waging war against God,” or “moharebeh,” and corruption on earth.

The process has been criticized within the country too. Mohsen Borhani, a Tehran University professor and an Islamic jurisprudence expert, has also challenged the use of such religiously based charges against protesters. In a television debate last month, he argued the protesters executed were charged with waging war against God when their role in the protests did not, in fact, merit such a charge.

The brandishing of weapons by protesters, he said, was meant to intimidate, not injure, security personnel. “This is out of the realm of moharebeh because the person’s opposition is towards the government, not civilians.” Sepehri Far said that Mohsen Shekari, one of the first protesters to be executed, was accused of injuring an officer. “Others have received the death penalty for extremely vague charges such as destruction and arson of public property or using a weapon to spread terror,” she said.

Activists say Iranian authorities have developed sophisticated methods of spreading disinformation on how, why, and when executions will occur. Civil rights activist Atena Daemi noted in a tweet, for example, that several Iranian news outlets had reported that activists on death row had been released, news that the prisoners’ families refuted. Activists say condemning the protests is not enough. EU has taken note, and the bloc continues to discuss imposing a fourth round of sanctions on Iran; some members have supported moves to classify its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

CNN/S.O