Iran executes man over 2022 anti-government protests

A man has been executed in Iran, three years after he was arrested during the nationwide anti-government protests in 2022, the judiciary says.

Mojahed Kourkouri, also known as Abbas Kourkouri, was sentenced to death after being convicted of armed attacks and membership of a "rebellion group", according to the judiciary's Mizan news agency.

He was accused of killing seven people, including nine-year-old Kian Pirfalak, during protests in the city of Izeh. Kian's family said he was killed by security forces, but authorities maintained that a "rioter" shot him.

Amnesty International said Kourkouri was subjected to torture and that his trial was "grossly unfair".

Kourkouri is the 11th person known to have been executed in relation to the protests, which were sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained by morality police in Tehran in September 2022 for allegedly wearing her hijab "improperly".

Hundreds of people were killed and thousands detained in a violent crackdown by security forces, which portrayed the protests as "riots".

Kourkouri was accused of opening fire on a car carrying Kian Pirfalak and his family in Izeh, in the south-western province of Khuzestan, at the height of the unrest that November.

State authorities blamed "terrorist agents" for Kian's killing, and later arrested Kourkouri during an armed raid the following month, during which Kourkouri was shot and injured in the knee, human rights groups said.

Kian's family has repeatedly said it does not think Kourkouri was involved in the boy's killing.

At Kian's funeral, the boy's mother was overheard in a video telling mourners: "Hear it from me myself on how the shooting happened, so they can't say it was by terrorists, because they're lying."

"Plainclothes forces shot my child. That is it," Zeynab Molaei said.

Later that the day, she appeared to recant the remarks in a state TV interview, warning that they should "not be misused". She looked visibly distressed, prompting many on social media to warn that she might have been coerced.

The judiciary's announcement that Kourkouri had been executed sparked condemnation among human rights groups.

Amnesty International said Kourkouri's trial was unfair because he had been denied access to an independently chosen lawyer and his confessions, which were broadcast on Iranian state media, had been forced.

It added that following his arrest, Kourkouri was held in solitary confinement and repeatedly subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including severe beatings.

Kourkouri was initially sentenced in April 2023, but a judicial review of his case was filed to the Supreme Court in January 2024, Amnesty said. His conviction was later upheld and his sentence was sent for implementation later that year, it added.

The director of the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran's other leaders "must be held accountable for the extrajudicial killing" of Kourkouri, "as well as for the murders of Kian Pirfalak and thousands of other innocent people".

"The international community must break its silence in the face of this tsunami of executions carried out by the Islamic Republic," he added.

Kurdish human rights group Hengaw said at least 582 prisoners, including 19 political, religious, and security inmates, had been executed in Iranian prisons so far this year.

The last person to be executed in connection with the 2022 protests was Reza Rasaei in August last year.

The 34-year-old was sentenced to death in 2023 after what Amnesty called a "grossly unfair" trial that relied on forced confessions, which they said were "obtained under torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings, electric shocks, suffocation and sexual violence".

Iranian authorities accused him of having a part in the death of a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guards during the protests - a charge Rasaei denied.

He was executed in secret and his family was not given prior warning, Amnesty said.