The Public Executions of Protesters and The Iranian Regime’s History of Violence Towards its Citizens
Almost two months ago, there was a post that went viral that focused on the slatted execution of 15,000 incarcerated protesters by the Iranian regime. While that isn’t exactly the truth, here is why it is cause for concern and not something that the Islamic Republic of Iran isn’t capable of doing. While I very much stand by journalistic integrity and accuracy in reporting, this wasn’t the time to get all huffy about it. I mean, who was everyone who cried “fake news” trying to protect? The Iranian regime? Let’s remember who we are talking about here. According to Amnesty International, Iran is the world’s most prolific user of the death penalty second only to China.
Now let us explore why that is…
In the wake of Masha Amini’s death at the hands of the Iranian government on September 16th, 2022 there have been multiple protests across the country and around the globe. All of Iran’s 31 provinces have seen protests, across 160 cities and 143 universities.
Amini’s tragic death may have sparked the uprising, but after over three months of sustained protests, with no signs of slowing, it should be very clear to the rest of the world that the Iranian people are committed to fighting for their freedom from this oppressive regime and their ideological foundations. The Iranian people know that speaking out against the Islamic Republic of Iran could end their lives as the government has tried to quell the unrest with anti-riot police, Iran’s militia force (Basij), teargas, pellets and live ammunition.
As of this writing, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), at least 490 protestors, 68 of which were children, have been killed amidst the civil unrest with another reported 18,200 being arrested and 400 being sentenced to prison. As if that isn’t bad enough, there is growing concern from the international community as to the safety and rights to a fair trial of those incarcerated as the Iranian regime has already publicly executed two protesters (Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard) after closed, biased hearings. The unlawfulness of the trials has been stressed by human rights groups due to a lack of legal counsel and the overwhelming prevalence of torture and coerced confessions.
“These harsh sentences … are meant to intimidate Iran’s people, they’re meant to suppress dissent and they simply just underscore how much the Iranian leadership actually fears its own people,” said US state department spokesperson Ned Price.
These actions definitely show that the Iranian government fears their people, but personally, Price’s use of the word “harsh” is far too kind. These are Islamic extremists using severe, fearmongering tactics against their citizens because they fear the power of the people.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE: History of Iranian Protests
The Iranian government sees nothing wrong with public hangings and has a history of carrying out these sentences in mass. The most notable was the purging of political dissidents and nonreligious individuals in the late 1980s. In the summer of 1988, at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Iranian authorities saw to the execution of an estimated 2,800-5,000 protesters and political opponents across the country in at least 32 cities.
Then, more recently, to quell uprisings after the disputed presidential election results in 2009 (The Green Movement) and then again in 2019 (Bloody November) as a result of the astronomical rise in fuel prices.
Not to mention the student-led protests in July of 1999 as a response to government forced shuttering of a pro-opposition newspaper, Salam. These protests didn’t see public executions but they carried the same brutality the Iranian people had experienced in the 80s. This outright atrocity by the Iranian government led to students being thrown from rooftops and torched dormitories. The five-day student-led protest ended with seven students killed, at least 200 wounded and another 1,400 being detained. Many of those students arrested faced sentences of up to 10 years in prison and at least one person went missing completely.
“The 1999 movement helped shape the citizenry that in 2009 cried for its rights - what it believed, it knew, were its rights,” said Iranian UK-based lecturer, Shahab Esfandiary. “This fundamental shift in attitude was a prerequisite to 2009 - just as the 2009 [protests] will be for the next one to come,” he added.
The Green Movement
While technically not considered part of the Arab Spring, since that start date is in December of 2010 in Egypt (before spreading across the Middle East over the next few years) Iranians may have tipped the scales with the Green Movement in 2009.
In a widely disputed vote, the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected. Perhaps unsurprisingly, after the polls closed, the regime began its extreme censorship by forcing the campaign offices of the opposition (reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi) to cease operation permanently. Millions of Iranians responded by taking to the streets across the country with an estimated 113 individuals losing their lives as a result of their participation in the movement.
The Green Movement got its name due to protesters wearing a particular shade of green which was associated with Mousavi’s campaign.
Bloody November
Partly due to inflation and crippling US sanctions, protests took place on November 15th, 2019 in what would be known as Bloody November in response to an extreme spike in fuel prices. Violent crackdowns were a response as well as a government-imposed, week-long internet blackout. Amnesty International estimates at least 304 people lost their lives during the unrest of 2019 which spread to more than 100 cities across the country. Though other sources believe that as many as 1,500 protesters were killed as a part of that rebellion.
Back to Present Day: The Mere Condemnation of the Iranian Government’s Actions is Not Enough
Human rights groups have been on high alert since the start of these protests following the death of Mahsa Amini. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights warned that the public execution of a young man so quickly after being detained indicated “a significant escalation of the level of violence against protesters.”
“[U]nless the political cost of the executions is increased significantly, we will be facing mass executions,” cautioned Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
With tens of thousands of protestors detained by the Islamic Republic of Iran and hundreds more killed during the protests, Amiry-Moghaddam believes there to be “a serious risk“ that this regime would resort to, or repeat its “grave human rights crime” of the late 1980s.
Clearly, Iran and This Oppressive Regime is No Stranger to Protests
But these protests are different. These are different in scope, scale and passion. To say that they have an unprecedented feminist nature doesn’t quite do the movement justice. I often don’t like the connotation that the word feminist carries, because women’s rights are human rights. You are either for everyone being treated equally or you’re not. But this mobilization crosses the socio-economic divide. Young Iranians are leading this charge against decades of oppression. They are being bold. They are being brave. And they have a courage that is unwavering and inspiring. I fucking applaud them! They know that their lives could be very well at stake and they are showing up anyway.
Yes, these protests started in response to Mahsa Amini’s death, but since then protests have grown to include calls for the immediate dismantling of the country’s oppressive, authoritarian, Islamic regime.
Freedom of Speech: What We in The States Call The First Amendment
Let’s be absolutely clear, there isn’t really free speech in Iran.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) at least 37 journalists have been arrested in Iran as these anti-state protests have spread across the country. The Committee to Protect Journalists is a non-profit that monitors press freedom across the globe and as a journalist I have been receiving their emails for years and have immense respect for the work they do.
Journalists are persecuted in nefarious, extremist countries that don’t want the world to know of their transgressions. That’s also why our First Amendment of Free Speech is so vitally important to this country. I won’t get too carried away here, but I encourage anyone who wants to learn more to become familiar with the Committee to Protect Journalists and how the right to access unbiased news and the freedom of speech are attacked every damn day across the globe.
It is Always Telling When There is an Internet Crackdown, isn’t it?
It’s not only to regulate independent news outlets so that there is no unbiased coverage like the crackdowns of the past have been. These are targeted at the Iranian people to quiet their stories and limit their communications to mobilize. Iranian authorities say they will restrict internet access in the country until order is restored to the streets. Meanwhile, according to the country’s semi-official news agency Fars News, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is asking people to out their fellow Iranians and identify protesters.
Does this sound familiar? Because it gives me flashbacks to 2020 and our Black Lives Matter protests where our government was requesting the same thing of its citizens, to out their neighbors. Protesters were being encouraged to wear long sleeves and to cover their faces and any tattoos so they couldn’t be identified in pictures. Let’s not conflate the two, but there are some stark similarities.
Back to this internet thing. Humans, for all of our flaws, are innovative. To circumvent these internet blocks people have been turning to VPNs both in the country and in the diaspora. Then there are the hackers. Internet activist hacker group Anonymous has entered the chat and has targeted the Iranian government.
Anonymous has announced several breaches of Iranian government websites and they have been using the hashtag #OpIran, short for Operation Iran. This hashtag is all over social media and started gaining traction shortly after Amini’s passing. Anonymous tweeted that they had successfully hacked more than 1,000 CCTV Iranian cameras. This can't exactly be independently confirmed, but I believe them and I am cheering them on.
Doing What We Can with What We Have
The main point here though is the loss of life and the biased trials of Iranians. As I write this, at least four more protesters are at imminent risk of being executed following the Supreme Court's decision to uphold their death sentences. Their fast-track sham trials lacked any amount of due process. According to sources, Iranian authorities relied on torture to aid in the coerced confessions of these young men (Mohammad Ghobadlou, Mohammad Hosseini, Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Mohammad Boroughani). Much like what was seen to garner the confessions of the two young men publicly hung at the beginning of December.
Make no mistake, public executions in Iran are not limited to these recent protests. In the first half of 2022 alone, Iran saw a surge of executions in what appears to be the government's attempt to stifle public discontent. Iran Human Rights out of Oslo reported at least 251 executions as of July 2022. Iran Human Rights has since raised concerns that these executions are politically motivated because that number is more than double that of the same time period from the year before. And it isn’t at all far-fetched to say that these extra-judicial killings are being used to intimidate anti-government seethings with ethnic minorities being disproportionately targeted.
At least once, in every decade, since Ayatollah Khomeini and his regime took over Iran in 1979, there have been protests and violent crackdowns as a response. Every generation over the past 40 years has been at the heart of, or experienced, a massive uprising in a direct affront to this brutal, extremist Islamic regime.
For decades the Iranian people have watched brothers, sisters, friends, children, parents, spouses and loved ones die at the hands of a government that continues to consider their citizens as less than. Less than profits, less than religion, less than prestige and facade…
We have to believe that this time it is different. We have to believe in the power of the people—the power of the Iranian people. They have quite literally been training for generations for this moment and I believe in the founding of a new Iran.
An Iran that serves all instead of the few.
As gut-wrenching as this often is to watch unfold, we cannot look away. We must continue to be their voice and tell their stories. Stories that the west often wouldn’t hear or couldn’t care less about. We cannot let them be killed in the dark. The people of Iran deserve their freedom. Just as we all do for we are all connected.
Sources and Additional Resources:
US, Allies Struggle to Support Protesters in Make-or-Break Moment for Iran https://thehill.com/policy/3748556-us-allies-struggle-to-support-protesters-in-make-or-break-moment-for-iran/
Scores of Executions Feared in Iran as 23-year-old Hanged in Public Killing https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/12/scores-of-executions-feared-in-iran-as-23-year-old-hanged-in-public-execution
Iran Executes Two Prisoners Arrested in Ongoing Protests, Threatens More to Follow https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/iran-executes-two-prisoners-arrested-in-ongoing-protests-threatens-more-to-follow
Iran Protests: 400 People Sentenced to Prison Over Tehran Unrest https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63960395
Iran’s Months-Long Protest Movement, Explained https://www.vox.com/2022/12/10/23499535/iran-protest-movement-explained
Policing Women’s Bodies: The Worldwide War on Women and Body Autonomy https://www.sustainablylb.com/blog/policing-womens-bodies-the-worldwide-war-on-women-and-body-autonomy
A Comprehensive Report of the First 82 Days of Nationwide Protests in Iran https://www.en-hrana.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/82-Day-WLF-Protest-in-Iran-2022-English.pdf
Iran’s 1988 Mass Executions: Evidence & Legal Analysis of “Crimes Against Humanity” https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/08/irans-1988-mass-executions
Amnesty: Iran security forces abused dozens in 2019 protests https://www.dw.com/en/amnesty-iranian-security-forces-committed-human-rights-violations-amid-2019-protests/a-54788631
Iran’s 1999 Student Protests: The Hot Summer that Shook Tehran https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/irans-1999-student-protests-hot-summer-shook-tehran
What is the Arab Spring, and how did it start? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/17/what-is-the-arab-spring-and-how-did-it-start
