Beirut — A 19-year-old star wrestler and two other young men were hanged in Iran this week, raising concerns among rights groups that a wave of executions could occur as authorities face relentless repression. Attacks from the United States and Israel Seeks to suppress public dissent.
The three men are the first of tens of thousands to be executed He was arrested during the crackdown in January On national protests. Rights groups say more than 100 others could face death sentences.
Wrestler Saleh Mohammadi was hanged early Thursday morning – along with Mehdi Ghasemi and Saeed Davoudi – in the city of Qom, south of the capital Tehran, according to state media. They were sentenced for “moharebeh” or “waging war against God,” for allegedly killing two police officers during Protests In the city.
Amnesty International said that the conviction of the three and others arrested during the protests came in “extremely unfair trials” in which Confessions Extracted by torture.
Mahmoud Amiri Moghadam, director of Human Rights in Iran, an Oslo-based group that documented the arrests, said the executions “aim to instill fear in society and deter new protests” amid the US-Israel war on Iran.
Amiri Moghaddam said he was concerned that several “executions of protesters and political prisoners may be imminent.”
Amiri Moghadam said that his group documented at least 27 death sentences issued against people arrested during the protests. He added that 100 others face charges that could lead to death, and Iranian official media broadcast hundreds of forced confessions of crimes punishable by death.
The nationwide protests, which began in late December, peaked in the first week of January, leading to the deadliest crackdown by Iranian security forces since the Islamic Republic seized power in 1979.
It was difficult to measure the total number of deaths due to restrictions imposed by the authorities on the Internet. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which relies on a communications network inside Iran, said it had confirmed the deaths of more than 7,000 people and was investigating thousands more. She said that more than 50,000 people were arrested in just over six weeks. The government admitted that more than 3,000 people were killed.
At the height of the protests, Iranian authorities indicated that swift trials and executions awaited.
At the time, US President Donald Trump indicated that military action might be an option to stop the deadly crackdown. But he quickly announced that he learned that plans to carry out executions had been halted, indicating that a military operation was no longer on the table.
Just one month later, Israel and the United States launched an intense air campaign against Iran, bombing military facilities and targeting Iran’s top political and security leadership. Security services believed to be responsible for the deadly crackdown on protesters are also being targeted.
Despite the war, Iranian authorities continued their crackdown on dissent. Authorities say dozens have been arrested since the war began on February 28, including some who participated in January protests.
Due to the internet blackout in Iran, few details were available about the three men executed on Thursday. Amiri Moghadam said that Daoudi was born on March 20, 2004, meaning he was executed one day before his 22nd birthday. He added that Qasimi’s age is unknown.
Mohammadi appeared to be one of the most prominent stars in wrestling, a sport that is very popular in Iran. In 2024, he won the bronze medal at the International Youth Freestyle Wrestling Championship in the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk.
Mohammadi posted on his Instagram account pictures and videos of his matches and training, along with inspiring messages saying, “No pain, no gain.” In his last post in late December, he posted a video of himself in the gym and wrote: “We have endured beyond our imagination. Here we go again #bodybuilding #training #wrestling.”
“He was full of energy,” said Shiva Amilrad, an Iranian teacher who lives in Toronto and spoke with Mohammadi in 2022 when he was still in high school.
Amlirad said that Mohammadi participated in the anti-government protests that broke out earlier that year when Mahsa Amini died in police custody After she was arrested for not wearing the hijab properly. These demonstrations were also met with a severe crackdown by the authorities.
She said Mohammadi told her that exercising and eating ice cream was his only way to “forget about all this disaster we are facing.”
“He always tried to show that he was happy,” Amelrad said.
Mohammadi, Ghasemi, and Davoudi were arrested in Qom on January 15, according to multiple human rights groups. The circumstances of their arrest are not known, and it is not clear whether they knew each other beforehand.
They were charged with the murder of a police officer on January 8, and convicted in early February, according to Amnesty International and Iran Human Rights.
During his detention, Mohammadi was beaten and one of his hands was broken, Amnesty International said in an open letter dated February 19 to the Iranian judiciary, criticizing the trial of dozens of arrested protesters. Amnesty International said Mohammadi denied the accusations and withdrew his confessions in court, saying they were extracted under torture.
“The authorities have systematically subjected those detained in connection with the protests to enforced disappearance, incommunicado detention, and torture to extract forced confessions,” Amnesty International said in the letter.
Mizan, Iran’s official judiciary news agency, announced the execution of the three on Thursday, showing a video of them sitting in prison uniforms in court. She said they confessed to killing two police officers “with knives and swords,” and showed a video of them allegedly reenacting the killings in front of judicial officials.
Amiri Moghadam, of Iran Human Rights, said the Islamic Republic is struggling to survive and “is well aware that the main threat to its existence does not come from external parties, but from the Iranian people who demand radical change.”
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Keith reported from Cairo. Frankl from Jerusalem.