Rights groups condemn Iran's 'abhorrent' execution of protester

Iran faced condemnation from human rights groups Wednesday over its execution of a man convicted of killing a Revolutionary Guard in 2022 protests, with activists saying his confession had been obtained by torture.

Gholamreza Rasaei, in his mid-thirties, is the 10th man executed by Iran in connection with the months-long protests that erupted in September 2022 after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini. The Iranian Kurd had been arrested for an alleged breach of the country's strict dress code for women.

Rasaei was executed in prison in the western city of Kermanshah on Tuesday after being convicted of killing the Guards colonel, according to the Mizan Online website of the Iranian judiciary.

Human rights groups have repeatedly accused Iran, which they say executes more people annually than any nation other than China, of using the death penalty against protesters without due legal process in a bid to intimidate their sympathisers.

Rasaei, a member of the Kurdish ethnic minority and follower of the Yarsan faith, was executed in secret with neither his family nor his lawyer given prior notice and his family then forced to bury his body in a remote area far from his home, Amnesty International said.

"Iranian authorities have carried out the abhorrent arbitrary execution in secret of a young man who was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in detention, including sexual violence, and then sentenced to death after a sham trial," said Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, Diana Eltahawy.

She said the execution was another instance of Iran using the death penalty as a "tool of political repression to instil fear among the population".

Amnesty said his death sentence was handed out in October 2023 "after a grossly unfair trial that relied on his forced 'confessions' obtained under torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings, electric shocks, suffocation and sexual violence".

- 'Inhumane and outdated' -

Norway–based NGO Iran Human Rights said Rasaei had stated in court that the confessions had been obtained under torture but this was ignored by the judge who also dismissed two expert testimonies, including a forensics report, that argued he could not have been behind the killing.

The "death sentence was issued and implemented based on his torture-tainted confessions and with the aim of intimidating the public," said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

IHR said Iran has now executed at least 313 people this year alone.

More than 20 convicts sentenced to death on drug and murder charges have meanwhile been transferred to death row cells in Ghezelhesar prison in the Tehran satellite city of Karaj ahead of their expected execution, it said.

Rights groups said the execution showed there was no let-up in Iran's use of the death penalty since reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian was sworn in last week.