Iran Announces Third Public Execution Sentence In Less Than A Month
An Iranian official says a person has been sentenced to be executed in public, the third such penalty to be handed down in the country in less than a month.
An Iranian official says a person has been sentenced to be executed in public, the third such penalty to be handed down in the country in less than a month.
The prosecutor in the western city of Khorramabad announced that a defendant was sentenced Sunday to be hanged in public for the alleged killing of a police officer in December 2021, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).The official, Darioush Shahounvand, didn’t disclose the name of the person sentenced.In late March, a court in the central province of Esfahan sentenced two other people to be publicly executed for the killing a police officer in November 2021.Iran had halted public executions for about a year and a half due to Covid-19 restrictions.According to the Iran Human Rights Organization, at least 111 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2022.The founder of the Norway-based group, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, has rejected claims by Iranian official that public executions are a “deterrent”, arguing that the practice creates a "cycle of violence" in society and aims to "intimidate the people".Amnesty International said in its annual review of the death penalty published a year ago that Iran executed at least 246 people in 2020, remaining the world’s second top executioner after China.Other countries using the death penalty included Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Syria and Vietnam.
Confirming the plans, Mohammad Aghamiri told Didehban-e Iran website on Saturday that there are "men who are not family members and young [unmarried] men" in parks so it is to women's own benefit to keep men out from where they play with their children. He also claimed that creation of a separate area for women and their children was based on "popular demand".
Those who advocate allocation of a different section of parks and other public areas such as playgrounds to women claim that this will help guard women's privacy and separation from men according to Islamic values.
Limitations for women have always existed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution under the pretext of protecting them, Niki Mahjoub, journalist, told Iran International TV, adding that segregation laws have steadily increased, particularly in the past few years.
Some fear that religious hardliners might be aiming at more segregation in parks and other public places.
Addressing a Tehran City Council meeting on Sunday, Aghamiri claimed that Didehban-e Iran had misrepresented his remarks and that he had not meant complete segregation of parks but meant only allocation of a special place for women and their children to play together.
He insisted that the plan ensures "women's safety" and giving them peace of mind that their children would not be "abducted". He went on to claim that women are far less likely to abduct children than men.
"There are special parks for children in all countries but now that this is being done in Tehran those who are hostile [to Islamic values] are painting a dark picture and saying parks are going to be segregated," he said.
Aghamiri added that mother and child parks will help make families happier and healthier. "Men are at work during the day. Mothers who have more free time can go to these parks and spend time with their children," he said.
Tehran has over 2,500 large and small parks and neighborhood playgrounds including nine parks that are for women only. Aghamiri said on Sunday that the number of all-female parks is going to increase to forty soon.
The first of all-female parks opened in Tehran was inaugurated by the city's conservative mayor, Mohammad Ghalibaf, in 2008. Some women at the time welcomed the idea because in this park they did not have to wear the compulsory hijab and could dress or exercise as they wished, as even gardeners were female. Others, however, said they feared this was a prelude to greater gender segregation in the city.
Since 2008 all-female parks have also been established in other cities and towns.
On Saturday a video was posted on social media showing tall concrete walls built around a park by the municipality in Bojnord in northern Iran. The mayor of Bojonord has said that the walls have been built not to segregate men and women, but to provide "a safe space" for women.
The Islamic Republic enforces complete segregation of men and women in many public spaces including schools, public transportation, gyms, swimming pools, and beaches. Women are allowed at some athletic events such as volleyball games, in a separate part of the stadium, but unofficially banned from others such as football stadiums, men's wrestling competitions and boxing matches.
Amhmadreza Djalali (Jalali) traveled to Iran in 2016 on the invitation of Tehran University and was arrested by security forces on accusations of espionage for Israel and later sentenced to death. He is one of several dual nationals held on trumped-up charges who are used as bargaining chips against Western countries.
Two British dual nationals were released in March in exchange for the payment of more than $500 million owed to Iran by the United Kingdom. Others in the past were released for money or in exchange with Iranian agents jailed abroad.
Iran Human Rights Organization based abroad, said information received from political inmates in Tehran’s Evin prison, indicated that Djalali realized infirmary personnel had “stolen” his medications and went to enquire. The prison officials assaulted him on April 4 and he received wounds in the incident.
Djalali, who is not allowed to communicate with his family or friends, suffers from several illnesses and his physical condition has deteriorated after years of mistreatment in jail.
There were reports last year that the Islamic Republic was interested to exchange Djalali with Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian prosecutor who is on trial in Sweden for taking part in mass killings of prisoners in 1988.