Iran ‘executes teenage champion wrestler after he was tortured into confessing to waging battle towards God’ in crackdown on anti-regime protesters
Iran has executed three people who were accused of killing two police officers after taking part in anti-regime protests.
Champion wrestler Saleh Mohammadi, 19, was reportedly killed in a public hanging along with Mehdi Ghasemi and Saeed Davoudi in the city of Qom on Thursday.
Mohammadi was sentenced to death in February, less than three weeks after his arrest, over the murder of a security agent during the anti-regime protests on January 8, according to Amnesty International.
He denied the accusation and claimed his earlier confessions had been extracted under torture. But the court dismissed his claims without any investigation.
Ghasemi was accused of participating in the killing along with Davoudi, who was also accused of murdering another policeman on the same day.
Their deaths, which marked the first official executions related to the protests which began last year, were reported by the judiciary’s Mizan Online new agency.
The individuals were involved in the killing of two law enforcement personnel, Mizan said, adding that their execution was carried out after they were found guilty of the capital offence of ‘moharebeh’, or ‘waging war against God’.
Iran Human Rights condemned the three men’s deaths, claiming they followed ‘grossly unfair trials, based on confessions extracted under torture and coercion’.
‘We consider these executions to constitute extrajudicial killings, carried out with the intent of creating terror to suppress political dissent,’ the Norway-based NGO added.
Champion wrestler Saleh Mohammadi, 19, (right) was reportedly killed in a public hanging on Thursday
Saleh Mohammadi, Mehdi Ghasemi and Saeed Davodi in footage of the trial published by Iranian state media
The organisation claimed Mohammadi had turned 19 last week while Davodi would have turned 22 this weekend.
Protests broke out in Iran in late December against the rising cost of living before morphing into nationwide anti-government demonstrations that peaked on January 8 and 9.
Iranian authorities later launched a brutal crackdown on the protests claiming they had turned into ‘foreign-instigated riots’ involving killings and vandalism.
Tehran has acknowledged that more than 3,000 people died during the unrest and attributed the violence to ‘terrorist acts’.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), however, has recorded more than 7,000 killings, while warning the toll could be far higher.
The brutal crackdown also saw the deaths of more than 220 children, the agency said.
Other human rights organisations have tallied many more, and medical professionals have estimated that 30,000 could have been killed.
By late December, as protests slowly began to take hold across Iran, the regime had already carried out more than 2,200 executions in 91 cities, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
This was the highest figure in decades, signifying an unprecedented peak in brutality in Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s 36-year rule as Supreme Leader before his death.
Iranians attend an anti-government protest in Tehran on January 9
Tear gas is fired during an anti-government protest in Tehran on January 8
Iranian demonstrators gather in a street during a protest in Tehran on January 8
In the aftermath of the security forces’ brutal massacre of protestors on January 8, 9 and 10, many Iranians describe a ‘sea of blood’ separating civilians from the lethal government that rules them.
The protestors arrested in the government crackdown have alleged abuse while in custody, including forced nudity, exposure to cold conditions, and ‘injections with substances of unknown composition’, according Iran International, citing a source close to a detainee in prison.
Samira Parvareshkhah was arrested by security forces on January 9 in Rasht and was released two days later with ‘extensive bruising’ across her body, Hyrcani Human Rights Media claimed.
Shortly after returning home, her condition deteriorated with severe nausea, and she died while being transported to Bandar Anzali Hospital. No official explanation has been provided for the cause of her sickness.
During the nationwide ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests of 2022, over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini who was arrested for wearing her hijab incorrectly, authorities dismissed similar mysterious deaths as cases of overdose or suicide.
