Iranian public executions provoke international condemnation

A wave of executions has been sweeping Iran amid international condemnation and national outrage.

Top executioner

Iran has a lengthy history of being a top global executioner. But critics claim the dictatorship has elevated the death penalty to a new level with the latest executions of protestors. According to a May 2022 report from Amnesty International, the regime executed 314 people in 2021, a 20% increase from the year before. Many of those involved drug-related crimes, according to CNN.

NBC News reported that the country's protests have been violently suppressed for months by the Iranian regime. Now, it has begun publicly hanging prisoners, a tactic that some protesters and analysts view as a final attempt to quell the dissent that has presented an unprecedented threat to the religious system.

While the first executions of protesters who had been detained during the months-long demonstrations sparked outrage from Western governments and human rights advocates, they were not particularly shocking to those who had participated in the protests or were carefully following them from a distance.

According to activists, many of the demonstrators before Iran's courts this year are subject to a notably unfair legal process. Human rights advocates have expressed concern that many of them may join the increasing list of people Tehran has executed. At least 43 people are currently facing death in Iran, while the activist group 1500Tasvir claims the number might reach 100, CNN reported.

Public executions

The executions appear to have been exploited by the regime, using them to intimidate those who might protest in the streets.

According to the UN Office of Human Rights, Iran has utilized Islamic Sharia law to charge demonstrators with crimes that are punishable by death, such as “waging war against God” or “moharebeh” and “corruption on earth.”

The Guardian said that public executions have been practiced in Iran in the past, mostly in the 1980s during a widespread purge of dissidents and during the 2009 presidential election, but they have decreased in frequency since.

The uproar began in mid-September when Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was jailed for allegedly violating the nation's strict dress code, passed away in a hospital three days later. A three-day nationwide strike was witnessed in the country, and there has been a push on social media for another walkout, NBC News reported.

According to the Washington, DC-based watchdog group Human Rights Activists in Iran, at least 475 people have died overall and 18,000 more have been detained. The Interior Ministry of Iran reported in December last year that 200 people had died, including members of the security forces.

International outrage erupted when Iran killed two men for the murder of a paramilitary force member in November. Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, the main perpetrators of the crime that led to the martyrdom of Ruhollah Ajamian, were hanged. The most recent killings double the total number of those carried out in connection with the widespread protests. In December, the execution of two individuals incited anger throughout the world, according to the Guardian.

International condemnation

Activists claim that the Iranian government has created sophisticated strategies for disseminating false information about the how, why, and timing of executions. According to activists, denouncing the demonstrations is insufficient.

The European Union has taken notice, and some of its members have supported efforts to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group, as the union continues to explore placing a fourth round of sanctions on the country, CNN reported.

The executions were condemned by the UN human rights office because they were the result of “unfair trials based on forced confessions.” British Foreign Minister James Cleverly called on Iran to immediately halt the violence against its own people and denounced the murders, while the US State Department denounced in the harshest terms the “sham trials and execution” of the men, according to the Guardian.