Some Iranians describe an atmosphere of growing fear. Mina, 26, a Tehran resident, said her parents cried after the first execution and asked her to stop protesting at night in the vicinity. She is still undecided but admits that she and her friends were shaken after watching video scene of Mr. Shekari’s mother shouting his name and crying upon hearing of his execution.
Video of the grandmothers of two of the young men about to be executed went viral. inside video The grandmothers wept and begged justice officials to spare their grandsons’ lives, saying they had made a mistake and needed forgiveness.
The father of another executed protester – Mehdi Karami, a 20-year-old karate champion – told the Etemad newspaper on Monday that the lawyer assigned by the government to his son’s case would not return calls. of family members and neither do they. know your law practice address.
“Every night I fear they will tell me that my son has been executed,” Etemad quoted the father, Mashallah Karami, as saying. Mr. Karami describes himself as a peddler, selling napkins and tissues on the street and having another son who is disabled. “I beg you, in the name of God, not to execute my son! Give him a life sentence instead.
The executions have even rocked parts of the country’s clerical establishment. A prominent collective of senior scholars and clergy from the theological schools in the city of Qom issued statement condemned the executions alleging that the two men hanged were “moharebe”, enemies of God. The clerics criticized the hasty pace of the trials and said the charges and punishments were disproportionate to the crimes committed, and called on the judiciary to halt further executions.
The head of the clerical judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, said Monday that judges have the authority to decide what an enemy of God is. And the Deputy Interior Minister, Majid Mirahmadi, was quoted by Iranian news agencies on Saturday as saying that the media and international outrage surrounding the execution of the protesters would not affect the decisions of the officials. judicial office.
But the executions have caused deep anxiety among the Iranian public and diaspora. And several Iranian news agencies have captured the case of a Basij plainclothes militia member, Mohamadreza Ghanbartalab, pleading for the death sentence to be reversed for a protester accused of assaulting him. After testifying against the assault defendant, Mr. Ghanbartalab withdrew his judicial complaint and pardoned the defendant, Mahan Sadrat, Iranian media reported.
