Milad Zohrevand, aged only 21, was secretly put to death on Thursday morning at a prison in the city of Hamadan, Iran.
Human rights group Hengaw said it had received reports of the execution, though there was no confirmation from Iran’s judiciary, which convicted Zohrevand of murdering a member of the Revolutionary Guards during a demonstration.
The sources said he was denied a lawyer throughout his detention and trial.
If confirmed, Zohrevand would be the eighth protester to be executed after last year’s rallies, reports Persian BBC.
The protests against Iran’s clerical establishment erupted in September 2022 following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained by morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab „improperly”.
Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands detained in a violent crackdown by security forces, which have portrayed the protests as „riots”.
Hengaw, which focuses on Iran’s Kurdish ethnic minority, said in a statement that Zohrevand had also not been notified that his execution was imminent or granted a final meeting with his family. His body was not returned to his family, and his family was discouraged from publicizing the case before his death. They were informed neither of the execution or the possibility of a final visit prior to the execution.
Hengaw also alleged that the Revolutionary Guards – a major military, political and economic force in Iran – had put pressure on authorities to carry out the execution. It said this had happened without the explicit consent of the family of the officer whom Zohrevand was alleged to have killed.
Last week, Hamadan’s prosecutor said a branch of the Supreme Court had confirmed the death sentence handed to a defendant convicted of the murder of Ali Nazari, a member of the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence service. They did not identify the defendant, but legal collective Dadban cited sources as saying that it was Zohrevand.
Zohrevand was reportedly accused by prosecutors of being one of a group of five masked men who shot Nazari as he confronted students demonstrating at the Malayer Faculty of Medical Sciences in October 2022.
Iran is second only to China in the number of executions carried out annually. The UN secretary general’s report said Iran was carrying out executions „at an alarming rate”, putting to death at least 419 people in the first seven months of the year, representing a 30% increase compared to the same period in 2022.
The AFP news agency also wrote that with the execution of this prisoner, it is the eighth case of the execution of detained protesters in Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini in September last year.
Earlier, the execution of other Iranian protesters led to a wave of domestic and international condemnations.
Amnesty International has stated that the Iranian regime’s goal is to send a message to the world and the people of Iran that it will not refrain from any measures to suppress and punish its opponents.
