Protests And Condemnation Ahead Of Esfahan House Executions
Iranians in the Islamic Republic and abroad have voiced their fears for three political prisoners whose execution is imminent.
Iranians in the Islamic Republic and abroad have voiced their fears for three political prisoners whose execution is imminent.
Protestors gathered overnight outside the prison in Esfahan (Isfahan) where Majid Kazemi, Saleh Mirhashmi, and Saeed Yaqoubi await their death sentence, having been found guilty in a trial condemned as a travesty of justice by human rights campaigners.
They were convicted over the death of two IRGC’s Basij militia members and a police officer in protests of November last year, in what Persian media have dubbed the ‘Isfahan House’ case.
Responding to social media calls on Sunday night, people gathered outside Esfahan (Isfahan) Central Prison hoping to stop the executions. Videos posted by activists show dozens chanting slogans in front of the prison, while gunfire was also heard as thick smoke caused by teargas enveloped the area.
Following the increase in the executions of prisoners in recent weeks, families of those sentenced to death held a protest rally outside the Judiciary’s office in Tehran’s Keshavarz Street on Monday, demanding an end to the killing.
A similar rally was held last week outside Iran’s largest prison in Karaj hoping for mercy by the regime but by sunrise the prisoners were hanged.
Opposition activists say the death penalty is being used against the Isfahan House three as an intimidation tactic to stop further protests.
Campaigners say the prisoners were tortured into confessions, and there is no reliable evidence against them. According to an audio file released on Sunday of Kazemi talking to his cousin, he was coerced into confession by threats to his family of rape and death.
Exiled prince Reza Pahlavi tweeted on Sunday night, saying, “We must not allow this murderous regime to take another innocent life and turn another mother into a mourner.”
Prominent activist Masih Alinejad said: “We should not allow the regime of crime and madness to take more young people from us and make more families grieving.”
Canada-based dissident figure Hamed Esmaeilion, whose daughter and wife were killed in the shooting down of Flight PS752 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in 2020, tweeted, “When will the insanity stop? When will the free world stand behind its own values? How many more executions will it take for the world to stand up?”
Last week, Australian Senator Jordon Steele-John, a political sponsor of Majid Kazemi called on the Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong “to have an urgent meeting with her Iranian counterpart to do all they can to prevent the execution of Majid, which could happen at any moment”.
Iranian expatriate communities plan demonstrations against the executions in cities worldwide on Saturday, May 20.
Iran has always had a high number of executions but the number started to rise after President Ebrahim Raisi – the former head of the country’s notorious judiciary -- took office in August 2021.
The United Nations said last week that Iran has executed 209 people so far this year, calling the record "abominable".
Dr. Mohsen Asadi-Lari, a former high-ranking health ministry official who lost both his children, Mohammad-Hossein and Zeinab, in the downing of the Ukrainian plane on January 8, 2020,told Didbaniran website Sunday that there is evidence the shooting was intentional, but the authorities would not release the evidence.
Iranian authorities who first claimed it was air crash due to a mechanical problem, three days after the incident admitted the plane was shot down with 176 people onboard, but insisted that it was due to human error.
Asadi-Lari said they asked the court to investigate the evidence proving that firing of two anti-air missiles at he plane was intentional and also demanded that the data to be released to them, but the court did not pay attention. He said that the information recorded on the plane’s flight recorder – known as the black box -- would definitively impact the final rulings.
He added that the conversations between the plane and the control tower can shed light on the circumstances of the missile attack. “We are sure that he deliberately triggered the attack and we have raised this in the court in different ways," he said about the missile operator.
Asadi-Lari added that the prime suspect in the case, identified as a Major Mehdi Khosravi, will be released in the near future because according to Iran’s laws he has spent about a third of his sentence. More than three years have passed since the incident and Khosravi was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
He claimed that Khosravi has been kept in solitary confinement since January 2020, saying, “Anyone familiar with Iran’s prison and judicial matters knows what it means to be in solitary confinement.” His remarks implicitly pointed to the fact that the regime does not want him to talk about the details of the incident.
“Compare the case of this plane with the case of the executed protestors, who were hanged for blocking a street or setting fire to a trash bin,” he said, adding that 176 innocent people were killed, and the culprit can go free after 40 months in prison.
Asadi-Lari clarified that the family do not seek execution for the officer because he was a service member and was doing his job, but they want the truth to be revealed.
Asadi-Lari and his wife Dr. Zahra Majd earlier insisted that the ten low-ranking military personnel on trial are not the real culprits. They claimed Khosravi was an expert in the Tor-M1 surface-to-air system that shot down the plane and that it was unbelievable that he had made the decision based by error.
Ukraine's flight PS752 was shot down on January 8, 2020, as it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. Only hours earlier, the IRGC had fired more than a dozen missiles at Iraqi bases hosting US troops in retaliation for the killing of the IRGC Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani by a targeted US drone strike just five days earlier.
Despite expecting retaliation from the US, the IRGC which is responsible for air defense of the capital did not close the civilian airspace in the early morning hours of January 8.
Asadi-Lari and his wife, both professors at Iran Medical Sciences University, say the whole family, including their two children who were students in Canadian universities, were devastated by Soleimani's killing and were very worried about a US retaliation for Iran's missile attack while the family was on their way to the airport. Before the flight took off, their son Mohammad-Hossein had been praying for Soleimani who was buried the day before.
Unlike parents and family members of many other victims of the tragedy, the Asadi-Lari family are not members of the Canada-based association representing victims' families. The association does not recognize the eligibility of the Islamic Republic's Judiciary for investigating the incident and has repeatedly called for top Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, to be held responsible.