Statement of the Tudeh Party of Iran: The Inhumane act of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the Eve of the International Day of Human Rights… The Tudeh Party of Iran condemns the execution of Mohsen Shekari!
Saturday 10 December is International Human Rights Day. On this date in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was approved by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris. The thirty-fold provisions of this declaration, which was prepared in the aftermath of the Second World War and based on the painful experiences of this conflict, spelt out for the first time a legal framework for observing human rights according to a worldwide standard.
The violent and bloody suppression of human rights in Iran is not a new issue. From the large-scale executions of the early years of the [Iranian] Revolution to the killings of thousands of political prisoners in the National Catastrophe, the massacre of the summer of 1988, to the bloody suppression of student protests in July 1999, followed by other bloody repressions of the popular protest movements of June 2009 to January 2010, January 2018, November 2019, as well as the one witnessed in recent months – all clearly show the inhumane nature of the supreme leader’s regime and its [default] institutionalised repression.
Oppression, persecution, torture, kidnapping of opposition figures, assassination of dissidents (both inside and outside Iran), the extracting of forced confessions from victims of torture, and total disregard for the democratic rights and freedoms of citizens are all part and parcel of the established modus operandi of the Islamic Republic regime – which also has the detention and killing of children on its black rap sheet.
On the eve of the International Human Rights Day and with the intention of terrorising and silencing the current mass protests, which have entered their thirteenth week, the regime’s judicial courts have once again brought about a catastrophe and executed Mohsen Shekari, one of the people arrested during the recent protests, ignoring any legal defence, norm, or appeal procedures – and omitting to inform his defence lawyer or his family members [before the carrying out of the sentence].
Mohsen Shekari, a 23-years-old protester, was arrested during public protests on Sattar Khan Street in Tehran. After spending over seventy-five days in the dungeons of the Islamic Republic and undergoing torture, he was sentenced to death without having had a proper trial or recourse to a defence lawyer, on charges of “Moharebeh” (“waging war against god”, meaning against the state or treason). He was executed at dawn on Thursday 8 December 2022. According to the published reports; Mohsen Shekari, Saman Saidi, and Mohammad Broghni had all been transferred to solitary confinement within Raja’i Shahr Prison on the Tuesday 6 December. It is now feared that the executions of Mr. Saidi and Mr. Broghni will follow in due course. Iran’s repressive regime has recently started executing prisoners to create an atmosphere of fear and terror. This brutal and inhumane act of the Islamist regime has prompted the mother of Saman Saidi (a.k.a. Saman Yassin, a rap artist from Kermanshah) to release a video requesting urgent assistance and intervention from the public and human rights institutions to save her son’s life from execution. Published reports also indicate that the judiciary of the Islamic Republic has issued a death sentence, on the basis of trumped-up charges and in clear contravention of the regime’s own laws, on Dr. Hamid Qarahasanlou, a popular medic, as well as 4 out of 15 defendants being tried for taking part in the one-month anniversary of the funeral of Hadiss Najafi, who had been killed by regime forces during the popular protests.
Strike action and the undertaking of industrial actions in many cities across Iran, along with the heroic protests of the country’s students on the 5, 6 and 7 December, showed that despite all of the threats made and the repressions carried out by the security forces of the supreme leader’s regime, the protest movement of the masses is steadfastly determined to continue with the struggle to dismantle the tyranny and establish people’s rule in the country.
The Tudeh Party of Iran, along with other national and progressive political forces of our country, has firmly and steadfastly defended the people’s struggle and believes that there is no other way forward than to intensify the joint struggle of all political forces, based in turn on the power of the broad sections of the population that have suffered under the oppression of the ruling tyranny, for the dismantlement of the administration of the Islamic Republic in its entirety.
Our Party has, in recent months, been busy exposing and explaining the terrible conditions of our country – and the capitalist nature of the Islamic republic regime in Iran – to international [progressive] public opinion and, at the same time, emphasising that the regime’s claims of having “anti-imperialist” policies are just a front and deception. The Tudeh party of Iran has also emphasised the principle of non-interference of foreign forces in the course of the Iranian people’s movement while also trying to attract international solidarity for the people’s movement inIran.
The Tudeh Party of Iran is also calling upon all progressive forces, human rights organisations, and international bodies concerned with the delivery of law and justice, to protest against the arbitrary and inhumane trials [taking place in Iran] and the lack of basic minimum legal standards for the accused detainees, and to do their utmost to put pressure on the Islamic Republic regime to immediately stop these proceedings. The policies of execution, torture, silent death, and abduction of the youth from their families by this brutal regime must not be allowed to continue. We should not allow the bodies and souls of these political prisoners and prisoners of conscience to be cruelly expended and wasted in the dungeons of this regime of ignorance and crime.
The Tudeh Party of Iran, which has long advocated for the abolition of the death penalty in Iran, strongly condemns this horrible crime of the “Islamic” regime, the execution of Mohsen Shekari. We hereby emphasise that the lives of political prisoners in Iran are at grave risk. The only “crime” of these freedom-seeking women and men, youths and teenagers, is that they demand freedom, social justice, and independence for the country. Let us redouble and intensify our efforts to free these prisoners!
The Tudeh Party of Iran
9 December 2022
