US State Department has denounced the execution of Mohsen Shekari, by the Iranian regime, saying these “draconian” tactics are meant to intimidate people.

State Department Spokesman Ned Price said Thursday the execution of the 23-year-old Iranian “represents a grim escalation in the regime’s attempt to suppress dissent and quash these protests.”

Price also expressed condolences to Shekari’s loved ones, saying Washington mourns his death.

Elsewhere in his remarks, he said the regime has “rounded up” and detained thousands of people for their involvement in the protests while many now face “harsh sentences, including the death penalty, in sham trials that lack any due process.”

The US denounces these draconian sentences and the denial of due process to the accused in the strongest terms, he underlined. Similar messages were tweeted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

“Unfortunately, this is just the latest tactic in the Iranian regime’s ongoing, brutal crackdown on peaceful protestors. These sentences are meant to intimidate people and suppress dissent, and they simply underscore that Iran's leadership fears its own people and fears the truth,” stressed Price.

Iran executed Mohsen Shekari Thursday, the first detained protester to be killed on “legal” basis. He was convicted of injuring a security guard and closing off a street in the capital Tehran.

Price warned the Iranian regime, “The United States continues to coordinate with allies and partners to confront Iran’s human rights abuses, both in public and in private,” expressed the US spokesman.