“Found guilty of waging war against God.”
From Reuters:
Iran hanged a man on Thursday convicted of injuring a security guard with a knife and blocking a street in Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said, the first such execution over recent anti-government unrest.
Authorities have been cracking down on the protests and on Monday, the Revolutionary Guards encouraged the judiciary to swiftly and decisively issue judgements against those accused of “crimes against the security of the nation and Islam”.
Nationwide protests that erupted after the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16 represent one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since its establishment in 1979.
From AP:
The Mizan news agency, run by Iran’s judiciary, identified the executed protester as Mohsen Shekari. It said he had been convicted in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, which typically holds closed-door cases. He was given the charge of “moharebeh,” a Farsi word meaning “waging war against God.” That charge has been levied against others in the decades since 1979 and carries the death penalty. The tribunals have been internationally criticized for not allowing those on trial to pick their own lawyers or even see the evidence against them.
Activists warn that others could also be put to death in the near future, saying that at least a dozen people so far have received death sentences over their involvement in the demonstrations.
From The Guardian:
Iran security forces are targeting women at anti-regime protests witht g shotgun fire to their faces, breasts and genitals, according to interviews with medics across the country.
Doctors and nurses – treating demonstrators in secret to avoid arrest – said they first observed the practice after noticing that women often arrived with different wounds to men, who more commonly had shotgun pellets in their legs, buttocks and backs.
While an internet blackout has hidden much of the bloody crackdown on protesters, photos provided by medics to the Guardian showed devastating wounds all over their bodies from so-called birdshot pellets, which security forces have fired on people at close range. Some of the photos showed people with dozens of tiny “shot” balls lodged deep in their flesh.
The Guardian has spoken to 10 medical professionals who warned about the seriousness of the injuries that could leave hundreds of young Iranians with permanent damage. Shots to the eyes of women, men and children were particularly common, they said.
