UN calls on Iran to stop executions and publish information on protests

A fact-finding mission mandated by the UN urged the Iranian authorities on Wednesday to stop executing people who were sentenced to death for taking part in anti-government protests that rocked the country last year, Reuters has reported.

The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022 while in the custody of the country’s morality police unleashed a wave of mass protests across Iran, marking the biggest challenge to its clerical leaders in decades. Since then, several people have been hanged for participating in the unrest, which Iran’s leaders have accused the country’s Western enemies of fomenting.

“We call on the Iranian authorities to stop the executions of individuals convicted and sentenced to death in connection with the protests and reiterate our requests to make available to us the judicial files, evidence and judgments regarding each of these persons,” Sara Hossain, chair of the Iran Fact-Finding Mission, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The mission also called for the “release of all those detained for exercising their legitimate right to peaceful assembly and for reporting on the protests.”

Responding to the statement, Kazem Gharib Abadi, the secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, told the Council that the establishment of the fact-finding mission last year was “an entirely politically motivated and unacceptable move.”

In May, Iran executed three men it said were implicated in the deaths of three members of its security forces during the protests following Amini’s death in police custody. They were among the 354 people reported to have been executed in Iran since the beginning of this year.

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