In Iran, two men were executed in connection with the anti-regime protests at the beginning of the year. According to the Iranian judiciary portal Mizan, the Supreme Court of Iran confirmed the sentences against the two defendants, which were carried out early Sunday morning at Qezelhesar Prison in Karaj. 19-year-old computer science student Mohammad Amin Biglari and 30-year-old Shahin Vahedparast Kalour were accused of attempting during the January protests to storm a facility of the Basij militia and gain access to a weapons depot. The regime described them as “rioters” and claimed they had intended to commit “mass murder.”
According to the human rights organization Amnesty International, Biglari and Kalour were part of a group of four people who had been sentenced to death in the same case. The group also included 18-year-old Amirhossein Hatami, who had been executed on Thursday. According to Amnesty, the group was subjected to “torture and other ill-treatment” in detention before being convicted in grossly unfair trials based on forced confessions. Due to their participation in the protests, several other people are at imminent risk of execution, the organization stated.
The most recent protests against the regime began in late December in Tehran as a reaction to the collapse of the national currency, the rial, but quickly developed into an uprising against the authoritarian system of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Iranian security apparatus violently suppressed the protests. According to estimates by human rights organizations, at least 20,000 people were killed, with a high number of unreported cases assumed. Time Magazine reported on January 25 that up to 30,000 people may have been killed within just two days.
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