I Don’t Want them to Read Quran or Pray
The sham trial and brutal execution of Majidreza Rahnavard
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The authorities wanted blood. And they wanted it soon.
It was late 2022 and on the streets of every major Iranian city, ordinary people protested and engaged in civil disobedience, furious about the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
I wrote previously about Amini, the 22 year-old Kurdish woman who was murdered by Iran’s Morality Police because her hijab did not sufficiently cover her hair, and about the massive protests against the Iranian regime that ensued.
The Islamic Republic did not take the challenge to its authority lying down. It struck back with despicable brutality. Iran Human Rights reports that the regime murdered at least 551 demonstrators, including forty-nine women and sixty-eight children.1 Thousands were arrested. In a statement, three quarters of the members of parliament (MPs) urged judges to “show no leniency” to them.2 Seven men would eventually be executed.3
The first of them, Mohsen Shekari, had been hanged in prison on December 8, but that wasn’t public enough for the regime. The MPs wanted a “lesson” pour encourager les autres. An unnamed police commander, quoted by Amnesty International, said it would be “a heart-warming gesture towards the security forces.”4
Majidreza Rahnavard, a twenty-three year old wrestler, had the tragic misfortune to be selected as the “gesture.” It is a case study in the nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran: abusive prosecutions, ambiguous law, lack of due process, Stalinist show trials, weaponization of the justice system against those who do not toe the official line, and the atrocities born from the marriage of a medieval mindset to modern technology.
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