Tuesday , 30 April 2024

30-Year-Old Iranian Kurd Faces Capital Punishment Amid Protest Crackdown

Iranwire – The Iranian judiciary has charged another protester with “waging war against God,” which carries capital punishment, local media report, amid a brutal state crackdown on dissent triggered by nearly four months of nationwide demonstrations.

Javaheri was arrested by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) intelligence agents on November 29

The chief justice of western Kurdistan Province accuses Pouria Javaheri, a 30-year-old ethnic Kurd, of firing metal pellets at police officers during protests in the town Kamiyaran on November 15, the semiofficial ISNA news agency said.

Javaheri was arrested by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) intelligence agents on November 29.

The man has been deprived of having a lawyer. His father has said he did not participate in the rallies.

Anti-government demonstrations have rocked Iran since the September death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Tehran’s morality police.

The protest movement was met with a bloody crackdown by security forces in which more than 500 people were killed and over 18,000 were arrested, according to activists.

Around 20 people have been handed capital punishment in connection with the protests. Two of them were hanged on January 7 amid international outrage, bringing to four the number of people executed so far.

The demonstrations and state clampdown have been particularly intense in the country’s western Kurdish areas and Sistan and southeastern Baluchistan Province, which is home to Iran’s Sunni Baluch minority.

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