An actor, a radiologist, a poultry business employee, a karate champion, an engineer – these are five men sentenced to death in Iran for alleged crimes linked to anti-regime protests. The charges raised against them included murder. With court hearings held largely in secret, their trials have been widely condemned as a sham.
All are due to be executed in connection with the killing of an agent from the country’s feared paramilitary forces, the Basij. The court says Ruhollah Ajamian, 27, was stripped naked and murdered on 3 November. But the circumstances of Ajamian’s death are opaque. The alleged attack occurred at a protest commemorating a demonstrator, Hadis Najafi, who had been shot dead by security forces at a rally demanding rights for women.
Tehran has forcefully suppressed peaceful protests that erupted in September, and rights groups accuse pro-regime units of killing hundreds of unarmed demonstrators. Officials seek to portray the rallies as violent “riots” in which security forces have been set upon.
Verified information is scarce. Authorities have been no less hardline in their attempts to silence the families and friends of those on death row, warning them against speaking out. But some feel staying quiet could be worse.
The Guardian has spoken to family and friends of all five men accused of killing Ajamian. Their testimony suggests that the five – none of whom appear to have been acquainted with each other – were probably forced to give false confessions.
Hamid Ghare-Hasanlou, 53
Dr Hamid Ghare-Hasanlou, a radiologist from Karaj, was charged in the Ajamian case with “corruption on earth”, a term used by courts in the Islamic Republic. His wife, Farzaneh, was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison. Amnesty International has said Farzaneh was coerced into giving false incriminating statements against her husband.
Ghare-Hasanlou’s brother, Hasan, said his sibling and sister-in-law had been protesting peacefully, and were detained by police at 2am the next day. “They arrested them and beat Hamid in front of their 13-year-old daughter,” Hasan said. “She is traumatised now, and with what has happened during these weeks and the death sentence of her dad, she is not in a good mental condition. In only a few hours, their lives completely changed.
“We know that he was tortured in custody as well. Five of his rib bones broke while they tortured him into confessing what he had not done. His left lung got punctured and he started bleeding. They delayed in taking him to the hospital, so a blood clot formed in his lung.”
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a close friend of Ghare-Hasanlou said: “They put a knife under Hamid’s throat when they wanted to arrest him while his daughter was right there. They threatened his daughter that they would kill her parents if she told anyone about what had happened before sunrise. They also have a son studying at a medical university. He is 20 years old and is on the run, going from one safe house to another so that they don’t arrest him in order to put more pressure on his parents.”
Mohammad Mehdi Karami, 22
“I’m a pedlar. I sell things on the street,” said a distraught Mashallah Karami, the father of 22-year-old Mehdi Karami, another of the accused. He was speaking in a video released by the reformist Etemad newspaper, pleading with authorities to release his son. “I’m asking and begging to remove the death penalty from my son’s file.”
Karami, a karate champion, had been convicted of “corruption on earth” by a court in Alborz province on 5 December. As well as the five people sentenced to death for allegedly killing Ajamian, 11 others received prison sentences. Iranian human rights groups and Amnesty International dismissed it as a show trial, saying the court did not even specify each defendant’s alleged involvement.
Etemad reported that Karami’s father had said authorities refused to let the family appoint their own lawyer.
Hossein Mohammadi, 26
Hossein Mohammadi, a theatre actor, was also convicted in the Ajamian case. “His family and close friends decided to announce his execution sentence publicly five days after they knew about it,” a close friend of Mohammadi told the Guardian. They took so long, the person said, because “they were scared to report it publicly” after their government-appointed defence lawyers warned them against it, saying it could negatively affect his case.
Mohammadi has a love of astronomy, and Interstellar is his favourite film, the friend said. “Hossein is a very emotional person, and he loves acting,” the friend said. “There’s not a lot of money in theatre acting, and so to make ends meet he worked in a post office.”
Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, 39
An employee of a poultry company, Mohammad Hosseini was on his way to pay respects to his late parents at their graves on 3 November. He came across a large group of protesters who were marching in memory of Najafi, a close friend said.
The source said Seyyed had been battling mental health issues ever since his parents died about 15 years ago. He is the sole breadwinner and responsible for providing for his brother, who has a drug addiction.
“Seyyed wanted to go to the grave of his parents as he always did on Thursday nights. Then he didn’t come to work on Saturday, and I think it was on Monday that we saw him on state TV,” said the friend.
Iran’s judiciary has claimed Mohammad Hosseini confessed to stabbing Ajamian. “Seyyed is a quiet and good-natured man who was loved by many. He could not even stand on his feet before taking 7-8 pills daily for anxiety. Those knives that he had carried on that day were for sports since he was a martial arts teacher … he gave lessons to children for free. Seyyed has no one in this world and only makes about $190 a month.”
Mohammad Hosseini’s case has been closely followed by the Iranian diaspora. Darya Safai, a Belgian MP of Iranian origin, announced “political sponsorship” of Mohammad Hosseini, personally following up on his case.
A former political prisoner who was arrested and imprisoned in Iran during the 1999 protests, Safai said she felt strongly about the case. “I know that a prisoner keeps thinking ‘is the outside world going to forget about me’. I feel like it’s a responsibility for us to support these prisoners,” she said. “I chose him so I could be his family. I hope he knows that he has a huge family in the world now.”
An independent lawyer, Ali Sharifzadeh Ardakani, was not allowed to defend Mohammad Hosseini but has studied the case and sought to help him. He said on Twitter he had been allowed to meet Mohammad Hosseini. “His story was devastating – from torture to getting beaten up with his eyes closed and hands and feet tied up, to kicks in the head to the point that he passed out. From iron rods used to beat him on the soles of the feet and shocks in different parts of the body. His statements in court were made under torture and they have no legal grounds,” he said.
The chief justice of Alborz province, Hossein Fazeli Harikandi, has denied the accusations of torture.
Reza Arya, 43
Reza Arya has not been officially announced as the fifth person to have received a death sentence in connection to the Ajamian case, but a close relative told the Guardian that he is.
The relative said Arya was employed by the underground electricity department, and his family loves music. Arya plays the stringed santoor, while his son and his wife play drums.
Arya was driving to visit relatives on the day of the protest, the source said. “The heavy traffic blocked the road, so Reza got out of the car to see what was going on. When he stepped out, he saw people gathered around the spot where Ajamian was killed. He was already dead when Reza got there.”
Alireza Akhondi, a Swedish MP of Iranian origin, has sponsored Arya’s case. “In this difficult situation and the oppression that Iranian people are facing in the past 43 years, it is really important that we do whatever we can for these people,” he said. “These executions are not based on anything.”
Akhondi said attempts to communicate with Iranian officials regarding the case had failed. “They want to show that they don’t care … They are playing political games that are too familiar for us as politicians. I see this as the regime is scared. I think this is the first time that the regime sees that the situation is very serious.”
Arya’s relative said he was arrested at his workplace two weeks after the alleged crime, and was now in solitary confinement. He had been allowed to call his family from jail to say he would be executed.
“The children are not attending school any more,” the relative said. “His poor parents are both very old and religious. They keep crying every day. They have said that if he is executed, they will lose all their faith in Islam.”
Source: The Guardian, Deepa Parent and Ghoncheh Habibiazad, December 30, 2022
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
