According to state media, an Iranian court has executed the first individual connected to recent protests after finding him or her guilty of "enmity against God" and "promoting corruption on Earth."
It happens after many weeks of widespread protests brought on by Mahsa Amini's death in September.
Anti-Regime Protests Prompt Iran to Issue Death Sentence
According to official media, the protester who reportedly set fire to a government facility received the punishment from Iran's Revolutionary Court.
The official news agency IRNA stated on Sunday, they were found guilty of "disturbing public order and peace, community, and cooperating to perpetrate a crime against national security, war and corruption on Earth, war by arson, and purposeful devastation."
Five further protest participants who were found guilty of "collusion to commit a crime against national security and disruption of public peace and order" were given terms of five to ten years in jail. Per CNN, IRNA further said that these verdicts are provisional and subject to appeal. The news source did not identify the protester who was given the death penalty or give information about the alleged crime's timing or location.
Since September, Iran has had the worst display of anti-regime unrest in recent history, which was prompted by indignation over the death of Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who had been held by the morality police for reportedly not properly wearing her hijab.
Since then, Iranian authorities have launched a harsh crackdown on protestors, accusing at least 1,000 individuals in the Tehran region of participating. Since the demonstrations started two months ago, security forces have killed at least 326 individuals, according to the Iran Human Rights NGO located in Norway.
The verdict most likely represents the first death sentence in the trials of people detained for taking part in the anti-clerical rule rallies that have rocked Iran over the past several weeks. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolutions, the Revolutionary Court was founded and is renowned for imposing severe penalties on individuals who defy Iran's clerical leadership.
Numerous imprisoned protestors have already received indictments from Iran, which has said that public trials would be held for them, Fox News reported.
According to Iran Human Rights, an organization headquartered in Oslo, security forces, including paramilitary volunteers with the Revolutionary Guard, severely suppressed the protests, killing more than 300 people, including many children. Meanwhile, Iranian authorities said the widespread disturbance also claimed the lives of more than 40 security personnel.
US Condemns Iran's Death Sentence of Protestor
Following the commander-in-chief's plead to "free Iran" made in a campaign rally before the November midterm elections, Jake Sullivan, US President Joe Biden's top security advisor, addressed the alarming sentence issued by Iran's Revolutionary Court.
Per Radio Online via MSN, Sullivan also said that Hossein Ronaghi, a political prisoner who had reportedly been tortured while in captivity, had been sent to a hospital in Tehran. An activist named Ronaghi was detained during the most recent demonstrations over Amini's murder.
Sullivan urged Iran's authorities to stop executing protesters inhumanely. The nation's top security adviser reaffirmed in his speech that the US and its allies will use sanctions and other appropriate measures to hold those responsible for the arrests and death sentences responsible.
Related Article : Iran: Viral Video Shows Security Forces Brutally Beating Protester, Police Vow to Investigate
@YouTube
