09 December 2022 10:11
His name was Mohsen Shekari and he was 23 years old. He was hanged on December 8 in Tehran, guilty, according to revolutionary justice, of having “waged a war against God”. This incredible accusation hit a young protester who allegedly attacked a paramilitary (he was injured) and blocked a road during the first demonstrations after the death of Mahsa Jina Amini.
Mohsen Shekari is the first protester executed since the beginning of the revolt in mid-September. If until a few days ago we could ask ourselves about a possible sign of détente with the announcement, never confirmed, of the dissolution of the “religious police”, Shekari’s execution erases any ambiguity: the regime remains inflexible.
It took two and a half months to try and kill Shekari. The Iranian power makes a mockery of the procedures (the boy didn’t even have a defense attorney) and manifests a dual vocation: revenge and the will to intimidate.
The determination of the protesters
To these we could add cruelty: Shekari was forced under torture to record a confession and his family was deprived of his body. A heartbreaking video shot outside the prison shows her mother screaming in pain at her.
According to Iranian journalists who follow social networks in Persian, many angry expressions were published on December 8. Certainly the demonstrators do not intend to demobilize.
Some doctors and nurses have reported that men and women do not have the same injuries
In Shekari’s case it is a deliberate decision by power, but unfortunately the boy is not the first person to die in this conflict. In the last three months the victims have already been between four hundred and five hundred, a considerable number which however has not affected the determination of the demonstrators. Eleven other people linked to the riot were sentenced to death. Today nothing can save them.
To all this we must add other disturbing facts: according to the Guardian newspaper, some doctors and nurses have reported that men and women do not have the same wounds. Law enforcement officers often shoot with air rifles: women are shot in the genitals, face and breasts, while men in the legs, buttocks and shoulders.
“They want to destroy the beauty of women,” an Esfahan doctor who treated the protesters clandestinely told the Guardian, X-rays in hand.
Iran has just experienced three days of demonstrations and strikes whose most spectacular effects have been deserted corridors and lowered tents in the bazaars of Tehran and large cities, a sign that young people can count on the support of other fringes of the population. A new call for demonstrations has been launched for Saturday and Sunday. The fear is that the repression could be ferocious. The police chief said that his agents will act without “any brake”.
As for the Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, he proclaimed that the demonstrations have no connection with economic or cultural claims, but are the result of an “American conspiracy” to overthrow Iran. We are now a long way from the veil. A fight to the death is underway in Iran.
(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)