A person has been executed in Iran, three years after he was arrested throughout the nationwide anti-government protests in 2022, the judiciary says.
Mojahed Kourkouri, also called Abbas Kourkouri, was sentenced to demise after being convicted of armed assaults and membership of a “rebel group”, in line with the judiciary’s Mizan information company.
He was accused of killing seven individuals, together with nine-year-old Kian Pirfalak, throughout protests within the metropolis of Izeh. Kian’s household stated he was killed by safety forces, however authorities maintained {that a} “rioter” shot him.
Amnesty Worldwide stated Kourkouri was subjected to torture and that his trial was “grossly unfair”.
Kourkouri is the eleventh individual recognized to have been executed in relation to the protests, which had been sparked by the demise in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old girl who was detained by morality police in Tehran in September 2022 for allegedly carrying her hijab “improperly”.
Lots of of individuals had been killed and hundreds detained in a violent crackdown by safety forces, which portrayed the protests as “riots”.
Kourkouri was accused of opening hearth on a automobile carrying Kian Pirfalak and his household in Izeh, within the south-western province of Khuzestan, on the peak of the unrest that November.
State authorities blamed “terrorist brokers” for Kian’s killing, and later arrested Kourkouri throughout an armed raid the next month, throughout which Kourkouri was shot and injured within the knee, human rights teams stated.
Kian’s household has repeatedly stated it doesn’t assume Kourkouri was concerned within the boy’s killing.
At Kian’s funeral, the boy’s mom was overheard in a video telling mourners: “Hear it from me myself on how the taking pictures occurred, to allow them to’t say it was by terrorists, as a result of they’re mendacity.”
“Plainclothes forces shot my youngster. That’s it,” Zeynab Molaei stated.
Later that the day, she appeared to recant the remarks in a state TV interview, warning that they need to “not be misused”. She seemed visibly distressed, prompting many on social media to warn that she might need been coerced.
The judiciary’s announcement that Kourkouri had been executed sparked condemnation amongst human rights teams.
Amnesty Worldwide stated Kourkouri’s trial was unfair as a result of he had been denied entry to an independently chosen lawyer and his confessions, which had been broadcast on Iranian state media, had been pressured.
It added that following his arrest, Kourkouri was held in solitary confinement and repeatedly subjected to torture and different ill-treatment, together with extreme beatings.
Kourkouri was initially sentenced in April 2023, however a judicial assessment of his case was filed to the Supreme Courtroom in January 2024, Amnesty stated. His conviction was later upheld and his sentence was despatched for implementation later that yr, it added.
The director of the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, stated Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran’s different leaders “should be held accountable for the extrajudicial killing” of Kourkouri, “in addition to for the murders of Kian Pirfalak and hundreds of different harmless individuals”.
“The worldwide group should break its silence within the face of this tsunami of executions carried out by the Islamic Republic,” he added.
Kurdish human rights group Hengaw stated no less than 582 prisoners, together with 19 political, spiritual, and safety inmates, had been executed in Iranian prisons thus far this yr.
The final individual to be executed in reference to the 2022 protests was Reza Rasaei in August final yr.
The 34-year-old was sentenced to demise in 2023 after what Amnesty referred to as a “grossly unfair” trial that relied on pressured confessions, which they stated had been “obtained beneath torture and different ill-treatment, together with beatings, electrical shocks, suffocation and sexual violence”.
Iranian authorities accused him of getting a component within the demise of a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards throughout the protests – a cost Rasaei denied.
He was executed in secret and his household was not given prior warning, Amnesty stated.
