Iran is getting worse and worse, and hundreds of people are learning their fates.
With 18,000 people in jail and a wave of executions coming soon, this country is going to hell as the rest of the world watches.
In Iran, it took less than a month to look into, catch, judge, and kill two young protesters. Now, the country, which is in a lot of trouble, is getting ready for a killing spree.
Majid Reza Rahnavard, 23, was hung from a crane in the center of Mashhad, northeast Iran, on Monday. His hands and feet were tied, and a black bag was put over his head.
Pro-government media showed video of the event, which showed masked security guards standing behind concrete walls to keep the crowd back.
On November 15, he was caught and charged with killing two paramilitary police. He wasn’t given a lawyer, and he couldn’t look at the evidence. His trial happened in private.
Soon after Majid was put to death, Iranian state-run media reported that up to 30 people, including three children, had been charged with moharebeh (waging war against god). One is a professional football player for his country who is 26 years old.
But the same thing could happen to the other 18,000 people who have been locked up since the protests began in mid-September. They have not yet gone to court.
Iran has already put more than 560 people to death in a legal way this year.
But it was the death of a Kurdish-Iranian woman who was 22 years old that pushed the people of Iran over the edge.
Mahsa Amini was arrested by morality police in September because she was “not wearing her headscarf the right way.” She was released from police custody in a coma and died a few days later from severe head injuries.
Iranian state-run media tried to downplay claims of brutality by saying that Mahsa had “a heart attack” while being “convinced and educated” about how to act morally.
Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI), a group that has been watching the protests, says that more than 488 people have been killed since then as the government tries to put an end to the growing civil unrest.
Now, it worries that the Islamic Shia government is about to start a series of cruel show trials and public executions to scare its people into giving up.
Moharebeh is a word in Farsi that means “fighting against God.” Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, this charge has been used against political dissidents and people who work for human rights in Iran. It is punishable by death.
Now, Iran’s theocratic (religious) government wants everyone to know that to oppose them is to oppose God.