(Bloomberg) -- A man who was arrested after he took part in Iran’s nationwide 2022 uprising and later accused of killing a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the protests was executed on Tuesday, state-run Mizan Online reported.
Reza Rasaei, a 34-year-old Kurdish-Iranian who had joined protests in the city of Sahneh in northwestern Kermanshah province, was sentenced to death after a forensic scientist testified that the knife used to kill IRGC intelligence officer Nader Bayrami was the same as one owned by Rasaei, according to Mizan, which added that he’d confessed to the crime.
Rasaei is the tenth person to be executed by the Islamic Republic after being arrested for taking part in widespread protests that erupted in September 2022 after the death in custody of Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini. Twenty-two-year-old Amini had been arrested by police for allegedly flouting Iran’s strict female dress code.
Some 551 protesters, including 68 children, were killed in a fierce crackdown by security forces between September and December 2022, according to a report by the United Nations published in March.
London-based rights group Amnesty International condemned Rasaei’s execution as arbitrary and said it was carried out in secret, without any prior warning to Rasaei’s family and while the world’s attention has been focused on Iran’s conflict with Israel.
“This execution lays bare once again how Iran’s criminal justice system is rotten to the core and highlights the Iranian authorities resolve to use the death penalty as a tool of political repression to instill fear among the population,” the organization said in a statement, adding that Rasaei had been subjected to torture and sexual violence while in detention.
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