Iran has crossed a line with the execution of a 23-year-old protester

The world needs to pay attention, and update its posture toward the regime, writes Borzou Daragahi

Based on a confession obtained while he was in the custody of the regime, the evidence against Shekari hardly stands up to scrutiny (Amnesty International)

Mohsen Shekari liked to sing. He can be seen in videos posted online crooning along as a friend played guitar. Acquaintances also say he loved video games, and was hoping to save up enough money working at his job at a Tehran cafe to buy a PS5. Like many or even most of Iran’s young people, he took part in the nationwide uprising following the 16 September death-in-custody of Mahsa Amini. He was arrested on 25 September, thrown into jail, charged “with waging war against God”, and put to death on Thursday morning. He was 23 years old.

The Tehran regime of Ali Khamenei insists a deliberative process led up to his execution a mere few weeks after he was arrested. But whether a supporter or opponent of capital punishment, the execution of Shekari was beyond any acceptable international or national standards. Examining the sham that unfolded, Khamenei’s enforcers might as well have dragged him into the alley behind the police station where he was first arrested and shot him dead on the spot.

Even more alarming, there are more Iranian protesters on death row or facing the death penalty, including five accused of killing one of the thuggish plainclothes Revolutionary Guard enforcers menacing Iranians, and dozens more charged with the murky Islamic crime of waging war against God. The Khamenei regime is abusing the cover of law to pursue vendettas and terrify protesters. Iran has crossed a line. The world needs to pay attention and update its posture toward the regime.

It took a mere 74 days between the time Shekari was arrested and the moment he was brought to the gallows. Contrast that with the six pro-regime thugs arrested and charged with the gruesome 2002 murders of five residents of the city of Kerman they accused of “moral corruption”. Those murderers, who admitted their horrific crimes, were ultimately cleared of capital offences after a dozen years of court cases.

Shekari wasn’t even charged with murder. He was accused of blocking trafficking and wounding one of the pro-regime enforcers assigned to attack and maim protesters. Even under Iran’s obscure and highly flawed legal system, neither is a capital offence. On Friday, Iran’s top Sunni cleric said that the execution violated the rules of Sharia, noting that Shekari had merely injured someone. “The Quran doesn’t allow you to kill such a person,” cleric Molavi Abdolhamid said in his weekly sermon.

Shekari’s prosecution was deeply unfair. He was tried before Iran’s hardline Revolutionary Court, a parallel despised institution under the control of Islamic extremists fanatically loyal to Khamenei. According to his family, he was denied access to a lawyer of his choosing and was instead railroaded through the system with a lawyer picked by the same operatives persecuting him – in violation of article 35 of Iran’s constitution, as well as international treaties to which Iran is a signatory.

Based on a confession obtained while he was in the custody of the regime, the evidence against Shekari hardly stands up to scrutiny. A video of him in prison shows him limping, suggesting he had been tortured and possibly sexually assaulted by investigators or guards while being interrogated.

Shekari may have never had a chance to say goodbye to his family. News of his death by hanging came as a shock to his parents and siblings, who had reportedly been told for weeks he would eventually be released if they kept quiet about his case. A heartbreaking video posted online shows his mother collapsing the moment she learns that her boy had been hung by regime operatives.

The regime likely believes that with a mixture of carrots, like easing up on hijab rules, and sticks, such as high-profile executions, it can end three months of protests that have shaken the regime to its core. But it is likely miscalculating the depth and breadth of anger among Iranians. Despite cold weather and the widespread presence of brutal regime enforcers, protests have erupted all over the country in recent days, although in slightly smaller numbers than other weeks.

In the southeastern city of Zahedan on Friday, the protesters chanted “political prisoners must be freed”, suggesting the killing of protesters would not stop anti-regime rallies. “Issuing strong and harsh sentences will not only cause the protests to subside, but will also inflame the fire of the protestors’ anger,” Mahmoud Sadeghi, a professor of law at Tehran’s Modares Tarbiat University and a former member of Iran’s parliament, wrote on Twitter.

International reaction to the Islamic regime’s bloodlust has been surprisingly muted. The European Union issued a carefully-worded statement calling on the Tehran regime “to uphold the accused individuals’ due process rights”.

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The United Kingdom did better. On Friday, it imposed sanctions on 10 Tehran operatives linked to the prison system and the Revolutionary Courts “that have been responsible for prosecuting protestors with egregious sentences including the death penalty”.

The matter is urgent. The regime is out for even more blood. Mahan Sedarat Madani, 23, is facing the death penalty on a series of minor offences that include destroying a Basiji thug’s mobile phone even as his alleged victims have agreed to have his sentence commuted.

The UK and European governments consider the death penalty abhorrent. But over the last 30 years, Iran has mostly used it against serious crimes such as drug trafficking, espionage, murder or rape, with a relatively deliberative process that has usually included access to defence counsel and a vigorous appellate process.

If the Khamenei regime is now going to start doing rushed Isis-like executions of political prisoners, all assumptions about its security posture must be re-evaluated, including its willingness to commit acts of terror abroad. As repugnant as the Tehran regime was before 16 September, it may be about to become even more nasty, violent and cruel.