Iran has again hanged two men who took part in last autumn’s nationwide anti-government protests. International news agencies report this on Saturday. According to the authorities, Mohammed Mahdi Karami (22) and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini (20) killed a member of the security forces. As far as is known, this brings the total number of executed demonstrators to four.
In response to the new executions, Minister Wopke Hoekstra (Foreign Affairs, CDA) calls the Iranian ambassador to the mat, he writes in a tweet. It is the second time in a month that the Iranian ambassador has to report to answer for the death sentences handed out to protesters in the country. Fourteen people are currently on the death list, while dozens of other protest participants have yet to be sentenced.
The protests in Iran started after 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini was killed by police brutality on September 16 last year. Tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets in various parts of the country in the following weeks. At least 517 demonstrators were killed in clashes with the police, while more than 19,200 people were arrested in Iran, according to NGO Human Rights Activists. The Iranian authorities have not released figures on the number of deaths or detentions.
Sanctions
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also expresses concern about the situation in Iran through a spokesman. “We once again call on the Iranian authorities to stop imposing and executing death sentences against demonstrators,” it said a statement. In response to the violent suppression of the protests, the EU has previously imposed sanctions on the regime in Tehran on several occasions.
Mohsen Shekari, 23, became the first known person to be executed by Iranian authorities on December 8 for participating in the protests, less than three months after his arrest. A few days later, Majid Reza Rahnavard, also 23, was hanged in public from a construction crane.