While the World Looks Elsewhere, Iran Hurries Executions
time.com
Iran's government is on an execution spree that seems unstoppable.

Nazanin Boniadi is an Iranian-born human rights activist, actress and 2023 Sydney Peace Prize Laureate. Roya Boroumand is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran.

The Islamic Republic authorities in Iran are going on an execution binge, using the spiraling instability and conflicts in the Middle East — in which they are complicit — as a smokescreen for their crimes against the Iranian people.

On January 22, the mother of Mohammad Ghobadlou, a 23-year-old street protester in the “Woman Life Freedom” uprising in Iran, made an emotional videotape pleading for her son’s life to be spared. Ghobadlou was bipolar and his death sentence had been quashed by the Supreme Court. A retrial involving an adequate mental health assessment had been ordered in July 2023.

Despite this, his execution took place a day after his mother’s appeal, with only a 12-hour notice to his lawyer because Iran’s Chief Justice vetoed the retrial and made sure Ghobadlou was secretly sentenced to death. This is not the first nor the last execution carried out in Iran in flagrant violation of the Islamic Republic’s international human rights obligations, and with utter contempt for the rule of law. He is at least the ninth protester to be executed in connection to the 2022 protests. Farhad Salimi, an Iranian Kurdish political prisoner subjected to torture-tainted “confession" and whose decade-long pleas for a fair retrial were ignored, was arbitrarily executed on the same day as Ghobadlou. Less than a week after their execution, four more Kurdish dissidents who were forcibly disappeared in July 2022 — Pejman Fatehi, Mohsan Mazloum, Mohammad Hazhir Faramarzi and Wafa Azarbar — were also executed after grossly unfair and secretive trials, and allegations of torture. Adding insult to injury, the authorities are refusing to return the bodies to the families for burial.

    • girlfreddy@lemmy.caEnglish
      31·
      8 months ago

      Autocratic theocracy: There is no Western autocratic theocracy. Yes there is, although it is still developing.

      • The US is well on its way there now: with the balance of SCOTUS being right wing; Roe vs Wade being overturned; trans and women’s healthcare being decimated; the privatization of youth and adult penal systems without comprehensive federal oversight that have allowed massive abuse to occur; almost every police force in the nation under investigation for murder, fraud, abuse, stealing body parts, etc; educational systems so underfunded that many locales don’t have an actual tally of how many children live in a district; a current presidential candidate who’s facing multiple trials and civil court cases for everything from rape to fraud, but is very comfortable in positioning himself as America’s savior being martyred;
      • Tortures and murders their own population: America’s prison population would disagree, as would Black and Brown citizens who daily face being killed by cops. Add to this the seeming joy some take in states reactivating their death sentencing using unproven and unethical means.
      • Supporting and directing terrorists: One could argue that American military forces have, in the past, committed some serious war atrocities under the banner of “In God We Trust”. See the Iran-Contra affair for further evidence.
      • Selling arms to Russia: America has sold or exchanged weapons with other nefarious actors … again see the Iran-Contra affair.
      • Hurting trade: America currently has full or limited embargoes on Cuba, Russia, Belarus, Somalia, and a host of other nations/nationals which obviously affect trade.
      • Conducting information warfare: America has a long history of spying on its “friends”, first reported by Edward Snowdon, and more recently through Discord, which have negatively affected its relationships worldwide. Here’s a full list.
    • electric_nan@lemmy.mlEnglish
      32·
      8 months ago

      Way too many words for “the US protects its interests”. It will kill, torture, maim, level cities, topple governments, invade, occupy and embargo whenever it sees fit (which is a lot). The degree to which the US does these things is unmatched in scale in contemporary times. All our living presidents ought to face trial at the Hague.