Regime Mounts Pressure On Family Of Executed Protester
A cousin of one of three executed protesters in Isfahan says pressure is mounting on the family of one of three Iranians hanged in the regime's latest execution spree.
A cousin of one of three executed protesters in Isfahan says pressure is mounting on the family of one of three Iranians hanged in the regime's latest execution spree.
Mohammad Hashemi, who lives in Sydney and had been campaigning for Majid Kazemi's release, said in a tweet: “Kazemi's father's pension has been cut and his sister has also been fired from her workplace."
Hashemi claims that state agents arrested two brothers of Majid while they were severely injured, and they are still in custody.
According to Hashemi, the family was not allowed to hold a funeral for Majid, and they are still being monitored by Iranian authorities. It is a bid to further quash future protests, as the regime continues to face resistance since nationwide protests broke out in September following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
Majid Kazemi, Saeed Yaghoubi and Saleh Mirhashemi were convicted over the death of two IRGC’s Basij militia members and a police officer in protests of November last year, in what Persian media have dubbed the ‘Esfahan (Isfahan) House’ case.
The judiciary announced their execution in a statement on Twitter Friday morning, bringing to at least seven the number of protesters hanged since September.
The three were handed down the death sentence in a trial condemned as a travesty of justice by human rights campaigners, who say the prisoners were tortured into confessions, and there is no reliable evidence against them.
In a report Friday, Dadban said the three young men – Milad Armoun, Mehdi Hosseini and Alireza Kafaei -- have been charged with Muhariba (pronounced moharebeh in Persian) for the killing of a 21-year-old Basiji militia member named Arman Aliverdi in Tehran’s Ekbatan neighborhood October 26 amid nationwide protests.
Muhariba is an Islamic-Arabic term that in the lexicon of the Iranian regime means bearing arms and “fighting God” or “waging war against God,” and carries the death penalty.
A video circulating on social media at the time showed Aliverdi bleeding from the face and head while a protester kicked him. He later died in hospital. Authorities claim protesters also stabbed him.
Defendants in the case have denied stabbing Aliverdi who the residents of Ekbatan say had been trying to infiltrate the protesters to identify their leaders.
A young woman, who identifies herself as Aidi and runs the neighborhood’s popular Twitter account, told Iran International that the case is still under investigation and the accused have not been sentenced yet.
According to Payam Dorfeshan who represents one of the defendants in the case, the accused were tortured to confess to Aliverdi’s killing and implicate each other, Dadban said.
It also reported three other defendants, Mehdi Hosseini, Hossein Nemati and another yet unnamed young man apparently arrested in Ahvaz recently, have been charged with “complicity in murder” and “propaganda against the regime”.
After the incident, security forces from various agencies carried out many raids in Ekbatan and arrested at least fifty young protesters. Fourteen of the detainees were eventually indicted but others were freed later for lack of any evidence of their involvement in Aliverdi’s killing.
Dadban quoted Dorfeshan as saying that security forces’ violent daytime and night raids in Ekbatan were meant to arrest defendants and other protesters and instill fear among the residents.
The west Tehran neighborhood was an epicenter of protests ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who was fatally injured in September 2022 while in police custody following her arrest for not wearing “proper” hijab.
“These raids have seriously affected the mental health of the residents, particularly children.There are reliable reports about sleep disturbance and nightmares among children after these raids. Their drawings also show violent scenes as a result of [witnessing] the raids,” he said.
During the heat of the protests, Basij militiamen and officers of various intelligence and security forces in plainclothes attacked chanting young people who marched in small groups around the blocks of apartments in Ekbatan.
Basijis and other security forces on several occasions shot at people’s windows indiscriminately, rampaged the entrance lobbies in several blocks, broke the windows, and destroyed the lobby furniture and intercoms to give the residents a lesson.
The ever-present Basij have four bases within the five square kilometer complex which has 15,500 apartments and a population of around 45,000.
Regime forces often used tear gas, shot pellets at protesters for chanting “Death to Khamenei” and “Down with the Dictator” every night, and made arrests both outside and inside the buildings.
Asadollah Assadi, a former attaché at the Iranian embassy in Austria who was convicted of plotting to bomb a gathering of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) near Paris on June 30, 2018, was released and arrived in Tehran on Friday.
Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, who was detained in 2022 and sentenced to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes for alleged “spying and cooperation with the United States, money laundering and smuggling $500,000 out of Iran,” was also released as part of the deal.
The Belgian Parliament ratified the controversial prisoner swap treaty with Iran on July 20, but a temporary ban on the extradition of the convicted diplomat was announced by the Brussels Court of Appeal late in July following numerous complaints.
The critics of the accord warned that such a treaty would effectively establish Belgium as a “sanctuary country” for terrorist operations, and a haven for Iranian intelligence services to maintain a European command center. In March, Belgium's Constitutional Court rejected a request to annul a prisoner exchange treaty with the Islamic Republic paving the ground for the release of the diplomat.
Iranians and human rights activists feel betrayed and disappointed that Belgium released Assadi after huge rallies and and dozens of officials warning against such an act. Following his release, Iranian expatriate communities held protests in several cities to denounce Belgium's move to free the regime's diplomat.
Rights group Amnesty International said in a statement that "By transferring Assadollah Assadi to Iran, the Belgium government has contributed to a climate of impunity for the extraterritorial targeting of Iranian dissidents for extrajudicial execution, torture, and other ill-treatment, and undermined the rights of victims to justice, reparations and guarantee non-recurrence of violations."
In an interview with Iran International on Friday evening, Darya Safai, an Iranian-born member of the Belgian Parliament, described the day as “a black and bitter day for impunity and injustice for Iran and the world.”
“The Islamic Republic of Iran takes innocent people as hostages, blackmails, plans terror attacks on European soil, kills brave freedom fighters in Iran and yet the world continues to grovel and do as they demand,” she said, adding that “This regime will never stop capturing victims if it is rewarded in this way without a problem.”
According to the lawmaker, the Belgian government was supposed to inform the plaintiffs in Assadi's case before releasing him, but it did not do so.
Alireza Akhondi, an Iranian-born member of the Swedish parliament who has been very active in defending the ‘Women, Life, Liberty’ movement, also told Iran International that it is a shameful day in history.
He mentioned several names of the iconic martyrs of the uprising who have lost their lives in the path of Iran’s freedom, saying that such an event proves that the opposition should expand its efforts to make the world stand against this regime, which has been using the hostage-taking tactic for 44 years.
Reacting to the release of Assadi, exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi said that exchanging hostages for the regime’s terrorists “will not only fail to end the Islamic Republic’s hostage taking, but it will also encourage the regime to take further hostages and carry out further acts of terrorism.”
Pahlavi added that during his meetings with European lawmakers and politicians, he made it clear that the only solution lies in coordinated action from a position of strength. He called on world countries to “recall ambassadors from Tehran and expel the regime's ambassadors; Put the IRGC on the list of terrorist organizations; Help the people of Iran achieve the freedom and democracy that they deserve and are sacrificing for.”
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, an organization parallel to MEK and led by its leader Maryam Rajavi, which had mounted a fierce campaign against the deal, issued a statement following the prisoner swap, condemning it as a shameful appeasement with the Islamic Republic’s policy of hostage taking.
“The release of the terrorist, who organized and commanded the biggest criminal act in Europe after the Second World War, by violating the Court’s order, is a shameful ransom for terrorism and hostage-taking. This will embolden the religious fascism ruling Iran to continue its crimes in Iran through repression and regional and international terrorism,” read their statement.
The group added that “The release of this terrorist diplomat takes place while the Constitutional Court had clearly stated in its judgment that the Belgian government should inform the victims before transferring the convicts so that they have the opportunity to once again take the issue to court.”
The Islamic Republic has a long history of hostage diplomacy, which started soon after the establishment of the regime, with taking hostage American diplomats and embassy staff in 1979 for 444 days. UN experts and international human rights organizations say that the Islamic Republic takes foreigners hostage to extract concessions from the West.
