PARIS: Iran executed its first known execution on Thursday, Dec 8 over the protests that have shaken the regime since September, sparking an international outcry and warnings from rights groups that more hangings are imminent.
Mohsen Shekari, 23, had been convicted and sentenced to death for blocking a road and wounding a paramilitary during the early phase of the protests, after a legal process denounced as a show trial by rights groups.
The human rights groups warned that at least a dozen other people are currently at risk of execution because they were sentenced to hang in connection with the protests.
For nearly three months, protests have swept Iran since Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, 22, died in custody after being arrested by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly breaking the country's strict hijab dress code for women.
The protests, described by the authorities as riots, are the biggest challenge to the Islamic republic since it was established after the ouster of the shah in 1979.
Mohsen Shekari, a rioter who blocked Sattar Khan Street in Tehran on 25 September and wounded one of the security guards with a machete, was executed this morning, the judiciary's Mizan Online website said.
Amnesty International said it was horrified by the execution that followed Shekari's condemnation in a grossly unfair sham trial. His execution exposes the inhumanity of Iran's so-called justice system, where many others are facing the same fate, the group said.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Oslo-based Iran Human Rights IHR, urged a strong international reaction otherwise we will face mass executions of demonstrators Mohsen Shekari, who was executed after a hasty and unfair trial without a lawyer, he said.
Iran's Fars news agency published a video of Shekari talking about the attack while in detention, which IHR described as a forced confession with his face visibly injured.