Three More Protesters Sentenced To Death In Iran

The Pope’s remarks are his first public comments against the Iranian clerical rulers over the protests’ crackdown.

In his annual speech to diplomats accredited to the Vatican on Monday, he said “The right to life is also threatened in those places where the death penalty continues to be imposed, as is the case in these days in Iran, following the recent demonstrations demanding greater respect for the dignity of women.”

“The death penalty cannot be employed for a purported state justice, since it does not constitute a deterrent nor render justice to victims, but only fuels the thirst for vengeance,” he stressed.

These statements by Pope Francis are expressed in a situation that the Islamic Republic has so far executed four protesters and issued death sentences for several others.

Iran has been the scene of nationwide protests after the death of Mahsa Amini in ‘hijab police’ custody in mid-September.

Earlier, the Pope had refused to comment on Iran protests and the role of women after his trip to the region.

The execution of protestors in Iran has drawn a wave of international condemnations, but the Islamic Republic still issues new death sentences against some detained demonstrators.

Iran hanged two men on Saturday for allegedly killing a member of the security forces during nationwide protests that followed the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Zhina Amini on September 16, drawing condemnation from the European Union, the United States and other Western nations.

"With the executions, the Iranian regime is employing the death penalty as a means of repression," Scholz wrote on Twitter. "That is horrifying."

He said Iran should refrain from further executions after the killings of 22-year-old Mohammad Mehdi Karami and 39-year-old Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, whose deaths bring the number of executions linked to the protests to four.

"Together with our international partners, we will increase the pressure further on the Iranian regime," the government spokesperson told a regular news conference, adding that Iran needed to see that there would be a price to pay for continuing.

A German foreign ministry spokesperson said the goal was to agree a fourth package of sanctions with other European Union member states in response to the crackdown.

European lawmakers and activists are demanding that the EU list Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. A group of French Senators have tables a resolution to end nuclear talks with Tehran aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA.

With reporting by Reuters

The foundation in a statement on Monday said The Olof Palme Prize 2023 will be given to imprisoned Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, Eren Keskin, a human rights lawyer in Turkey who was sentenced to six years in prison, and Marta Chumalo, a Ukrainian women's rights activist.

“Throughout their lives and through their actions, these three women, along with many of their colleagues, have inspired others and paved the way for courageous young women and men to continue fighting for the fundamental human rights,” said the statement.

“Narges Mohammadi is a journalist and human rights activist who has been struggling for women’s rights and freedom of speech in Iran. Her involvement has led to her repeated arrest, and she has served several prison terms,” wrote the Olof Palme Foundation.

The Olof Palme International Center is a Swedish non-governmental organization and Labor Movement's cooperative body for international issues. The center's areas of interest include democracy, human rights and peace.

The center is named after the late Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. Olof Joachim Palme was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1976 and 1982 to 1986. He was assassinated in 1986.

The annual Olof Palme Prize is awarded to people chosen by the fund’s board. The prize consists of a diploma and 100,000 US dollars.

The ceremony will be held in the Stockholm Concert Hall on February 1, 2023.

Khamenei, who is facing the most serious challenge to his rule since 1989 when he became Supreme Leader, claimed that protesters are not angry about government inefficiency, managerial and economic weaknesses, but on the contrary the antigovernment movement is meant to weaken a strong Islamic Republic.

Popular protests broke out in mid-September when a 22-year-old woman was fatally wounded after being arrested by Iran’s notorious ‘hijab police’. After years of economic decline, increasing poverty and government interference in the private lives of citizens, the incident triggered pent-up frustrations that blew up in street demonstrations.

But unlike previous rounds of unrest, the government was not able to crush the protests in a matter of days and the demonstrators were not asking for reforms but demanding a regime change. Nevertheless, security forces killed more than 500 civilians and arrested close to 20,000 people by the end of December. The government has also hanged four protesters after sham trials, triggering Western condemnations, and isolating the clerical regime.

“In the recent riots, the hand of foreigners was visible, although some have denied it. As soon as we say foreign enemy, some deny it,” Khamenei said, referring to domestic pundits and politicians that say the protesters have genuine grievances.

‘Foreign enemy’ is a favorite term for the 83-year-old authoritarian ruler, who is a staunch opponent of the West and believes he is the leader of the Muslim world, although as a Shiite cleric he cannot be accepted by most Muslims, who are Sunnis.

‘The enemy’, usually refers to the United States, Israel, Western Europe and even some Arab countries – in short, whoever disagrees with Khamenei’s quest to dominate the region, eradicate all manifestations of Western presence, and destroy Israel.

Khamenei attributes almost all political and economic failures and shortcomings to conspiracies by ‘the enemy’, and the ongoing protests are no exception.

He began blaming foreigners as early as September and his loyalists and media controlled by hardliners immediately tuned their propaganda to his message.

“Actions by America, by Europeans…each somehow intervened in this issue [protests] in an obvious manner, not hidden from view,” Khamenei said.

The United States and Europe only gradually increased their criticism of Tehran as the story of Mahsa Amini, the woman killed by the ‘hijab police’ spread around the world and garnered sympathy, the West began to react. Reports of teenage protesters being killed by trigger-happy regime forces in the early weeks of the protests brought on more and more Western criticism.

Khamenei went on to blame international, Arab and Hebrew media for propaganda in favor of the protests. Here is where, he claimed that the protests were meant to weaken the Islamic Republic and had nothing to do with its shortcomings. It was “the strengths” they wanted to destroy, he claimed.

Khamenei’s Islamic Republic has survived with oil export income for more than three decades and US sanctions imposed on its crude exports since 2018 have further weakened a shaky economy. Millions of middle-class citizens have become poor as inflation has reached nearly 50 percent and the national currency has lost its value more than tenfold in five years.

Khamenei has refused to resolve his differences with the West over Iran’s nuclear program seen as a threat by many countries. But parts of his speech Monday revealed what could be interpreted as anxiety over the political and economic deadlock his regime faces.

“Big works should be accomplished. Transformational work must get done. I believe it can be done. We have pious, hardworking officials,” Khamenei said and reminisced about the 1979 revolution that toppled the monarchy.

The problem is that millions of people now reject that revolution and aspire to establishing a secular and democratic country.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told Ritzau news agency on Sunday that Iran's ambassador in Copenhagen will be summoned to convey the Danish government's anger at the Islamic Republic's aggression against its people.

The Danish Foreign Ministry also told AFP that the meeting will take place on Monday.

Meanwhile, Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib wrote on Twitter that she was "horrified" by the executions.

“Together with likeminded EU member states, we will summon the Iranian ambassador. New EU-sanctions are on the table,” reads her tweet.

On Saturday, the judiciary of the Islamic Republic executed two protesters, Mohammad Hosseini and Mohammad Mehdi Karami, on the charge of allegedly participating in the killing of a Basij member named Ruhollah Ajamian.

The execution of the two men came after a hasty trial and without their right to choose a lawyer. Many jurists and human rights activists described the trials as “unfair” and questioned the verdicts.

Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra wrote on Twitter Saturday that he was “appalled by the horrible executions of demonstrators in Iran,” and that the ambassador of the Islamic Republic in Amsterdam will be summoned.

He also said that the fourth EU sanctions package is being prepared, which will be discussed at the next meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council.

The executions drew widespread Western condemnations.