Nearly two months of protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini prompted authorities to unleash a crackdown that led to the detention of thousands of people. Some have been charged with offenses that could carry the death penalty in a country that Amnesty International says is second only to China globally in the number of people it executes each year. The unnamed defendant was sentenced to death in a Tehran court for the offenses of “arsoning a government building, disturbing public order, assembling and conspiring to commit a crime against national security,” as well as “enemy of God and corruption on earth,” it said. on Sunday the Judiciary website Mizan Online. Another court in Tehran sentenced five others to prison terms of five to 10 years for “assembling and conspiring to commit crimes against national security and disturbing public order,” Mizan said. This month, 272 of Iran’s 290 lawmakers asked the judiciary to implement the death penalty, in “an eye for an eye” retributive justice against those who “have harmed people’s lives and properties with blades and firearms.” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, said at least 20 people face charges punishable by death, according to official information. “We are very concerned that death sentences may be carried out hastily,” he said. “The international community must send a strong warning to the Iranian authorities that the application of the death penalty to the protesters is not acceptable and will have severe consequences.” On Sunday, Mizan and other local media also reported that the judiciary had indicted more than 750 people in three provinces for involvement in recent riots. More than 2,000 people have been charged, nearly half of them in Tehran, since the protests began, according to judiciary figures. The crackdown has also led to the arrest of dozens of activists, journalists and lawyers, whose continued detention has sparked an outcry abroad. On Sunday, Iranian authorities hospitalized prominent dissident Hossein Ronagi, who was arrested in September and has been on hunger strike for more than 50 days, his brother said. Ronaghi was taken to Evin Prison after his arrest on September 24. His family fear he could die of kidney disease and say his legs have been broken in prison. On Sunday, his brother said Ronaghi had been taken to Dey General Hospital in Tehran. “Hossein was transferred to one of the wards of Day Hospital,” Hassan Ronagi wrote on Sunday, saying his parents could not see their son. “His life is in danger.” According to the NGO Iran Human Rights, at least 326 people were killed by security forces as a result of the nationwide protests. That number includes at least 123 people killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province, on Iran’s southeastern border with Pakistan. Most of them were killed on September 30 when security forces opened fire on protesters after Friday prayers in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan, a massacre activists call Bloody Friday. These protests were sparked by the alleged rape during detention of a 15-year-old girl by a police commander in the port city of Chabahar. A delegation sent by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expressed regret and promised solutions in a weekend visit to Zahedan, official media reported. The city’s police chief and the head of a police station had been fired, local officials previously announced.
