Iran condemns to be publicly hanged an 18-year-old for participating in the protests

The regime of Iran has sentenced 18-year-old Saleh Mohammadi to death, as well as six other people for allegedly participating in the recent protests that erupted throughout the country against the Islamic Republic and which the authorities suppressed with a level of brutality and violence never before seen. The human rights organization Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), based in Oslo, assures that Mohammadi was accused on February 3 of killing a Police officer during the demonstrations on January 8 in the holy city of Qom. The organization denounces that the Qom Criminal Court (northern Iran) rejected the testimony of the young man – who denied having been in the demonstrations – and that, in addition, his confessions were obtained under torture. The court has ordered that his hanging be carried out publicly at the scene of the alleged crime: the Nabutov square. “After the unprecedented mass slaughter of demonstrators, the authorities of the Islamic Republic now intend to terrorize society by executing the detained demonstrators,” denounced the director of IHRNGO, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. In this regard, Amiry-Moghaddam has warned that the death penalty for Mohammadi “represents a dangerous escalation” and argues that “coordinated international pressure and public mobilization can increase the political cost of the planned executions and help save Saleh Mohammadi and many other protesters in danger.” This young man, who will turn 19 next March, becomes the first arrested protester to face public hanging. It is estimated that the number of those arrested exceeds 50,200. He was arrested on January 15 and the regime authorities accused him of dealing a fatal blow to an agent of the special police unit with a knife during the peak day of the protests, the same date on which the Islamic Republic imposed a total internet blackout and telecommunications in the country. The authorities of the ayatollahs’ regime drowned the uprising – which began on December 28 in the Grand Bazaar of Tehran due to the economic crisis – in blood. Several human rights organizations, with sources on the ground, speak of more than 6,000 deaths at the hands of the security forces, while more than 15,000 disappearances are being investigated.

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The regime has recognized about 3,000 deaths, but they claim that most are police or law enforcement officers killed by “terrorists.” Amnesty International (AI) has demanded that the Iranian authorities stop “immediately any plan to execute the 18-year-old wrestling champion, Saleh Mohammadi.” The organization has also expressed its concern that other protesters and dissidents “run the risk of being sentenced to death, given the mass arrests and threats from the Iranian authorities not to show ‘clemency’ and punish the protesters.” The President of the United States, Donald Trump, assured last January that the Islamic Republic had committed to halt all planned executions against the detained protesters. «We have been told that the killings in Iran are ceasing. They have ceased, and there are no plans for executions», Trump declared then, convinced from the White House. These statements also coincided with a renewed desire to resume nuclear talks with the ayatollahs. However, a month later, and after two rounds of talks between Iranian and American officials, the threat of a United States attack is gaining strength again. This Wednesday, the news portal Axios, assures that this operation could take place sooner than expected and could even last several weeks. Everything indicates that it would be a joint offensive of United States and Israel «of much greater scope –and more existential for the regime– than the 12-day War», last June, points out the media. Last week, Trump ordered to mobilize his largest and most modern aircraft carrier the USS Gerald R. Ford to Middle East, where it will join the USS Abraham Lincoln, and a dozen warships, hundreds of combat aircraft and multiple air defense systems.