Authorities in Iran have executed a second prisoner who was arrested and convicted amid widespread protests against the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei regime, officials said on Monday.
Majidreza Rahnavard was convicted for allegedly stabbing two security force members to death and injuring four others last month in northeast city Mashhad, Iran’s state news agency reported.
Rahnavard, who was executed early Monday and was among six other people on trial facing charges against crimes carrying the death penalty, was sentenced in a sham trial, human right activists have said.
According to footage on the state media, a man has been seen chasing another around a street corner and standing over him before stabbing the person. The assailant has been alleged to be Rahnavard, the state TV claimed.
The dead person was identified as a “student” Basij — known as paramilitary volunteers under the Khamenei regime’s revolutionary guard, reported Mizan.
The Basij volunteers have been deployed by the Iranian government in major cities burning in the rage of protests for attacking and detaining protestors seen fighting back the brute authoritarian force.
No motive was attributed for Rahnavard’s alleged stabbing and he was accused of attempting to flee Iran at the time he was arrested, Mizan reported.
He was convicted on the charge of “moharebeh,” a Farsi word meaning “waging war against God.” Iranian regimes have been using the charge against others since 1979 and slap the death penalty on those accused of it.
According to claims by Iran’s state media, the wrestler had confessed to the charges. But opposition sources have said that he was not given access to a lawyer and was tortured, reported The Jerusalem Post.
This is the second execution carried out by Iran within a week, signalling the urgency with which the Islamic nation is now carrying out death sentences for detained protestors in a bid to quell the demonstrations roiling the nation since September this year after the death of a 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police.
At least a dozen other protestors are facing death sentences in Iran and expected to be executed soon.
Amnesty International said that it has identified at least 18 others at risk of execution due to their links to the ongoing protests gripping the Islamic nation.
A dozen people are already suspected to have been sentenced to death in closed-door hearings, activists have warned.
At least 488 people have been killed in the protests in Iran, Human Rights Activists in Iran have said.
Another 18,200 are likely detained by the officials, the organisation monitoring the protests in the country said.
