Yesterday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a decree appointing Lieutenant General Ahmad Reza Radan as Commander-in-Chief of the Internal Security Forces, replacing General Hossein Ashtari. Also yesterday, Iran carried out two death sentences on two men accused of killing a security officer during protests sparked by the death of a Kurdish young woman, Mahsa Amini, according to the Iranian judiciary’s website Mizan Online.
This brings the number of executions related to recent protests in the Islamic Republic to four, as two men were executed in December, sparking international outrage and new Western sanctions on Iran.
Protests have been held in Iran since September 16 after Amini’s death, three days after she was arrested by the vice police on the grounds that she did not adhere to strict dress codes. Seyyed Muhammad Hosseini, those responsible for the crime that led to the martyrdom of Ruhollah Ajamian, were executed this morning.” On December 4, the court of first instance sentenced the two men to death.
On January 3, Iran’s Supreme Court upheld the death sentences handed down to two men, charging them with the murder of Adjamyan on November 3 in Karaj, west of Tehran. Karami’s father told Iranian media that the family’s lawyer was unable to access his son’s case files. .
Hundreds have been killed, including dozens of members of the security forces, during protests that have raised slogans against the authorities, and thousands have been arrested in the margins of movements that Iranian officials consider a significant part of the “unrest” behind the “enemies” Islamic Republic.
Since the beginning of the protests, the judiciary has sentenced 14 people to death for participating in the demonstrations, according to an AFP count based on official information, of which four people were executed, and the Supreme Court upheld two decisions against the other two, while six new trials are pending and two are subject to appeal. Others have filed appeals, and activists confirm that dozens of others have been charged with the death penalty.
