An Iranian professional football player is among two dozen people who are at the risk of facing capital punishment aka the death penalty for participating in the anti-hijab protests, rights groups have said. Tehran, they say, is using the death penalty as an intimidation tactic to quell protests. Nationwide anti-hijab protests have erupted in parts of Iran after 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini died in a hospital in Tehran under suspicious circumstances. She was arrested by the morality police for allegedly violating Iran’s mandatory hijab law.
The 26-year-old soccer player, Amir Nasr-Azadani, was arrested after he participated in the anti-hijab protests. He was also charged with the death of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander.
Amir Nasr-Azadani had reportedly participated in the anti-hijab protests. He had also chanted anti-government slogans. The 26-year-old was arrested and charged with moharebeh (enmity against God) which awards the death penalty as punishment.
Among those who face the death penalty for participating in the anti-hijab protests include a doctor and rap artists.
The executions of Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard, both 23, and the first people put to death over the protests, sparked an outcry. Majidreza Rahnavard was hanged from a crane in public rather than in prison.
“Unless the political cost of the executions is increased significantly, we will be facing mass executions,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group, accusing Iran of using death penalty to “spread fear among people and save the regime from the nationwide protests”.
The Iranian authorities say those facing death penalties are “rioters” who are being judged in full accordance with the country’s sharia law.
Amnesty International currently confirms 11 cases of death sentences issued against individuals over the protests, and another nine cases where individuals have been charged with crimes that could see them given the death penalty.
Amnesty also said that one protester, identified as Sahand Nourmohammad-Zadeh, was awarded death over charges — which he denied — that he did no more than tear down highway railings and set fire to rubbish bins and tyres.
A doctor, Hamid Ghare-Hasanlou and his wife Farzaneh Ghare-Hasanlou were on their way to the funeral of a killed protester when they were “caught up in the chaos” of a fatal assault on a member of the Basij militia. While Hamid Ghare-Hasanlou was sentenced to death and later hospitalised with broken ribs, his wife was given 25 years in prison.
On Amir Nasr-Azadani, Amnesty said the soccer player was in a similar position after being charged over the deaths of three security officials.
(With agency inputs)
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