Iran will not make concessions in dealing with the US, but will use all available tools, the country’s deputy parliament speaker said on Tuesday.
“We will use all available tools to secure our rights, and this does not mean surrendering to their coercion,” Ali Nikzad said.
The lawmaker said Iran would not yield under pressure and warned that adversaries expecting concessions in talks would face failure.
Judiciary-affiliated media identified the man as Amirali Mirjafari and said his death sentence had been upheld by the Supreme Court before being carried out early on Tuesday.
State media said Mirjafari had set fire to the Gholhak Grand Mosque in Tehran and acted as a leader of a network accused of links to Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, framing the case as part of efforts against foreign-backed activity.
Authorities said he had confessed after his arrest to taking part in protests in January, damaging public property, including phone booths and buses, and setting fire to motorcycles using gasoline-filled bottles.
Amnesty and other rights groups have repeatedly said Iranian courts rely on confessions obtained under duress in such cases.
Iran has used broad security charges to prosecute people detained during the January protests, which followed a new wave of anti-government demonstrations and a widening crackdown by authorities that became one of the most extensive in recent years.
Tehran has not released official nationwide arrest figures, but Iran International reported earlier this year that the number exceeds 36,500, based on internal security briefings the channel obtained and reviewed.
Earlier this month, Iran executed 18-year-old Amirhossein Hatami, who had been convicted in the same case linked to the nationwide anti-government protests that the Islamic Republic repressed in what became its broadest crackdown to date.
In a recent report, Amnesty International said 11 men were at risk of imminent execution over participation in the protests. The rights group said they had been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in detention before being convicted in grossly unfair trials based on forced confessions.