92 Hangings In Five Months
By: Jabbar Fazeli, MD
The Tehran magistrate announced that two Iranian men accused of spying for the Mossad and CIA were hanged today.
Technically the sentence was affirmed by the "Iranian Supreme Court", but despite going through all the motions, the authorities haven't even told us when and where the accused were arrested. Most media reports, including the IRNA English, doesn't even mention the accused names. The total secrecy has nothing to do with classified information as all judiciary cases are subject to the same secrecy. In most cases we only get the gender or the initials in Iranian media reports. I assume that is to minimize the chance of investigative reporting or "accurate" reporting on cases when a life hangs in the balance.
With this level of absolute secrecy it is impossible to judge the innocence or guilt of defendants, or hold the regime accountable to world standards or to the IR's own standards of justice.
The BBC reports the Tehran magistrate named the hanged men as Mohammad Heydari, and Kourosh Ahmadi.
These two hangings bring the tally on known hangings in Iran to 92 for this year (2013); That doesn't include most political prisoners and "separatists" hangings (4).
Secretly arrested, secretly tried, and secretly hanged, and oh yes, these two also confessed on TV (3) with the electric wires likely still attached to their genitalia.
Doesn't sound much different than any other hanging in the Islamic republic if you ask me!
Ps. Please note the impressive high rise in the hanging photo background. We should all be proud of the IR achievements!
Photo credit: PBS (a hanging from 2009).
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