Despite objections from human rights groups, on Friday Iran executed three men who were accused of deadly violence during an anti-government protest last November, the Associated Press reported.
Iran’s judiciary announced the executions of Saeed Yaghoubi, Majid Kazemi, and Saleh Mirhashemi on Friday but did not say how the executions were carried out.
Authorities claim that in November, the three men killed a police officer and two members of the Basij paramilitary group in the city of Isfahan during the anti-government protests.
Human rights groups argued that the men were denied due process and were subjected to torture before being forced to give televised confessions.
So far, Iran has executed seven people in connection to the protests that erupted last fall after the in-custody death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who had been arrested by Iran’s morality police.
The demonstrations quickly spread throughout the country, with protesters calling for the overthrow of the theocracy. While the protests have subsided in recent months, there are still occasional acts of defiance, including a growing number of women who are refusing to wear a hijab.
Human rights groups argue that those executed in connection to the protests were tried in secretive state security courts in which they were denied the right to a defense.
In response to the latest executions, Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said the indictment was full of “irregularities” and relied on forced confessions, revealing that the case was “politically motivated.”
On Thursday, President Biden’s US envoy for Iran Robert Malley spoke out against the impending executions which he described as “an affront to the human rights and basic dignity of all Iranians.”
Likewise, the European Union condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the execution of the three men and demanded that Iran put an end to the death penalty.
