Iran’s Top Sunni Cleric Says Hanging Protesters Is Un-Islamic

Spokesperson and Communications Director at US mission to the United Nations Nate Evans told Iran International that the regime has rounded up and detained thousands of people for their involvement in protests, expressing concern about the harsh sentences, including the death penalty the protesters face in sham trials that lack any due process.

He added that Washington “denounces these draconian sentences, including the denial of due process for the accused, in the strongest terms.”

Referring to the recent move to expel the Islamic Republic from the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the spokesman noted that “The US Mission to the UN continues to coordinate with allies and partners in New York, Geneva, and elsewhere, to confront Iran’s human rights abuses.”

Evans also expressed Washington’s determination to look for every opportunity to confront human rights abuses by the Islamic Republic. 

Similar messages were issued by State Department Spokesman Ned Price, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. 

Iran executed Shekari Thursday, the first detained protester to be killed on a “legal” basis. He was convicted of injuring a security guard and closing off a street in the capital Tehran.

A video posted on Twitter shows a few people quietly standing at his grave at Tehran’s Behesht Zahra Cemetery. Shekari, 23, was hanged Thursday morning after a hasty and unfair trial, which has sparked deep anger among Iranians.

Many believe he was hanged to instill fear among other protesters as his sentence for blocking a street and inflicting a minor injury on a paramilitary Basij member, was harsher than anyone could imagine.

Some people took to the street in his neighborhood Thursday evening and chanted “We will kill the one who killed our brother” and “Death to the Dictator.” People were indiscriminately tear-gassed and shot at with pellet guns whether they were on foot or in their cars, and even inside shopping arcades.

Anti-government protesters have planned further rallies on Saturday and Sunday in Iran and abroad in the memory of Shekari and other protesters killed by the security forces.

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For the fear of funerary events turning into protests, authorities have “snatched” the bodies of several protesters from the morgue or hospital and buried them secretly in nearly three months since protests began following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini. In some cases, families have taken the bodies home for fear of being deprived of a proper burial at their preferred cemeteries.

In November, the mother of ten-year-old Kian Pirfalak who was shot by security forces in the family car in Izeh, a small city in Khuzestan Province, had to take her son’s body to a relative’s home from the hospital with the help of her relatives and cover it with ice until the next day when she could give him a proper burial. The event turned into a massive anti-government protest with the mother, Zaynab Molaei-Rad, making a fiery speech and accusing the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of being responsible for her son’s death.

For decades the Islamic Republic has “stolen bodies” or buried people in unknown graves to deny families a proper burial or conceal atrocities.

In 1988 in what came to be known as the massacre of political prisoners, thousands were tried summarily and executed within a few months. The bodies were buried in unmarked graves at Tehran’s Khavaran cemetery and elsewhere. Thousands of families are still searching for their loved ones’ graves including many minors.

The extent of “body snatching” has gone beyond those executed or killed in protests. In October, Sara Haghighatnejad had to go through massive paperwork to bring the body of her dissident journalist brother, Reza Haghighatnejad, home from Germany where he died of cancer only to see the body snatched by security forces at Shiraz Airport. The family were then left in the dark for four days before they found out the body had been secretly buried, not at their family cemetery in his hometown, but in a remote village in their absence.

Molavi Abdolvahed (Abdulwahid) Rigi was kidnapped by unknown people on Thursday afternoon and his body was found on Friday with three bullet wounds to his head. 

The prosecutor of Zahedan, Mehdi Shamsabadi, confirmed his death, explaining that he was abducted from the backdoor of Imam Hussein Mosque and was taken with a car without a license plate. He added that the police is investigating the case to identify the perpetrators of this incident.

Following the Bloody Friday of Zahedan and the killings in the city of Khash, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had sent a delegation to the region as a measure to calm the situation. Abdolvahed was one of the clerics who met with the representatives of Khamenei. 

The crackdown on protesters in Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchestan, known as the Bloody Friday, took place September 30, when security forces killed close to 100 people, including women and children. 

Since then, people of the province are holding protest rallies almost every week after Friday prayers, chanting slogans against the regime and its ruler Khamenei. 

Earlier in the day, Molavi Abdolhamid, the most prominent religious leader of Iran's largely Sunni Baluch population living in the province, again criticized the regime for the execution of Mohsen Shekari, a young protester hanged for injuring a security guard with a knife and closing off a street in the capital Tehran, as well as other death sentences issued against other protesters.

"The execution of Mohsen Shekari by the Iranian regime is abhorrent. He is a tragic victim of a legal system in which disproportionate sentences, politically motivated trials and forced confessions are rife," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.

"We have made our views clear to the Iranian authorities – Iran must immediately halt executions and end the violence against its own people," Cleverly added.

On Thursday, Germany also summoned Iran’s ambassador over the execution, with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock describing the Iranian regime's contempt for humanity as “boundless."

Earlier on Thursday, the Islamic Republic hanged Mohsen Shekari, a young protester sentenced to death in a sham trial for injuring a regime supporter and closing off a street in the capital Tehran. The revolutionary court had accused him of Moharebeh, an Islamic-Arabic term meaning ‘fighting against God” which carries the death sentence.

The execution, widely seen as a measure to intimidate the protesters, has drawn international condemnation with EU countries vowing further coordinated action against the clerical regime.

In a short statement on its Twitter account, the regime’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that the government has "exercised the utmost restraint in dealing with the riots".

“In countering riots, the Islamic Republic has shown utmost restraint and -- unlike many Western regimes who smear and violently crack down even on peaceful protesters -- Iran has employed proportionate and standard anti-riot methods. The same is true for the judicial process: restraint and proportionality,” the statement read. 

The ministry then repeated the official rhetoric, blaming other countries for the protests, saying that “Yet, public security is a redline. Armed assault and vandalism aren't tolerable, even to Western regimes... Instead of exposing its mendacity by politicized statements, the West must stop hosting, backing and encouraging terrorists.” 

In his first speech after the execution of the first protester, Mohsen Shekari, President Ebrahim Raisi announced that "the trial and punishment of the protesters" will continue. Also, Ahmad Khatami, a hardliner cleric and Friday prayer Imam expressed his gratitude “for the decisiveness of the judiciary, which sent the first rioter to the gallows.”

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Judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi had announced Tuesday that five more people indicted in the killing of a Basij militia member, Rouhollah Ajamian, were sentenced to death. 

Shekari’s hanging after a hasty and unfair trial has sparked deep anger among Iranians, who believe his killing was meant to instill fear among the people, and world leaders who describe the act as the acme of atrocity and a nadir of humanity. 

People across Iran, especially the capital Tehran and Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province, held rallies in protest to Shekari’s execution and many others who are in danger of imminent execution.

The UN Human Rights council also deplored the hanging of Shekari and expressed concerns for at least 11 other protesters sentenced to death. “We call for an immediate halt to executions. Death penalty is incompatible with human rights and cannot be reconciled with right to life," the body said. 

The global outcry over the executions is not limited to politicians and state officials as many celebrities and right activists have also denounced the act with grassroot activists, known as the youth of Tehran's neighborhoods calling for a demonstration on Saturday afternoon. 

Canada-based activist Hamed Esmaeilion, whose daughter and wife were killed by the IRGC, have also called for rallies in many cities of the world on Saturday and Sunday in protest to Shekari’s execution and all the others planned to take place in the coming days. 

British entrepreneur and business magnate Richard Branson called the execution “unacceptable and cruel.” saying “Iran’s brutal and corrupt regime must be held accountable by the international community.” 

British author and philanthropist J. K. Rowling said in a tweet on Friday that “Mohsen Shekari was murdered by the state for wanting freedoms so many of us take for granted.”

Following his death, Shekari came to be known among the Iranian social media users as an avid gamer, which drew a lot of reaction from the gaming community. David Jaffe, a video game designer best known for creating the God of War series, called his execution “Sad, pathetic, and heart breaking.” “ANYONE who stands up against the sort of 'leadership' they have in Iran is a hero in my book. Rest in Peace and Power, Mohsen Shekari. Hoping your bravery, strength, and activism serve as an inspiration for millions,” he tweeted.