At least 100 protesters face execution risk in Iran, rights group warns
Iran has already executed two protesters: Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard, both 23, were hanged earlier this month.
A human rights group monitoring violations in Iran published on Tuesday the names of 100 Iranians it said were at risk of being executed for participating in anti-regime protests.
Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) said the 100 people have either already been sentenced to death or risk being sentenced to death due to their charges.
The group said the 100 figure is “a minimum as most families are under pressure to stay quiet, the real number is believed to be much higher.”
IHR called on the international community to “increase the political cost” of executions for the Iranian regime.
The defendants “have been deprived of the right to access their own lawyer, due process and fair trials,” it said.
“In cases where they have had managed to make contact or details of their cases reported by cellmates and human rights defenders, all have been subjected to physical and mental torture to force false self-incriminating confessions.”
Iran has already executed two protesters. Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard, both 23, were hanged earlier this month.
On Saturday, Iran’s Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of Mohammad Ghobadlou, a 22-year-old who was sentenced to death over the protests.
Activists have since warned that Ghobadlou’s life is in imminent danger.
Protests – described by the regime as “riots” – have swept across Iran since September 16 when 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini died after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran.
Since Amini’s death, demonstrators have been calling for the downfall of the regime in a movement that has become one of the boldest challenges to the Islamic Republic since its establishment in 1979.
At least 476 people, including 64 children and 34 women, have been killed by security forces in the protests, according to IHR.