05 August 2020 :
Political prisoner Mostafa Salehi was hanged at dawn on 5 August 2020 in a prison in Isfahan. Salehi was one of the protesters arrested during the nationwide protests in 2017-18 in the city of Kahrizsang, in Isfahan province. He was accused of killing a member of the Revolutionary Guards using a “hunting rifle” during the protests in 2017-18, the judiciary’s Mizan News Agency and Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
“Mostafa Salehi, who had murdered Sajad Shahsanayi with a bullet during the riots (of December 2017-January 2018), was executed this morning upon the request of the victim’s family,” Mizan said. Salehi had constantly denied the charges raised against him of killing the member of the regime’s IRGC Basij forces.
According to a source who is one of Mustafa Salehi’s relatives, the 30-year-old construction worker pleaded not guilty to murder and was acquitted of the charges nearly one year after his arrest. “Under pressure from IRGC intelligence, the case was reopened and he was sentenced to death,” the source said.
“He is innocent, he was forced to confess in front of the camera against himself, he did not plead guilty in court, there was no evidence. They executed him at the request of Shahsanayi’s family,” the source added.
The unrest of late 2017 and early 2018 began as demonstrations against economic hardship that spread across the country, triggering violence that killed 21 people and led to thousands of arrests, according to officials.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), strongly condemned the hanging of Mr. Salehi, and said: Reluctantly forced to refrain from executing eight other detained protesters subsequent to the millions-strong social media campaign calling for the halt in executions, the ruling religious fascism carried out this execution in retaliation and in order to terrorize the public and thwart the outbreak of any uprising.
Mrs. Rajavi urged the United Nations and its member states, as well as international organizations and institutions to immediately condemn this criminal execution. She emphasized that more than any other time, it is imperative to dispatch an international fact-finding mission to visit Iranian prisons and meet with prisoners.
