News Update

Father Of Young Protester On Death Row Commits Suicide

Mohammed Moradi, Father of Young Protester Commits Suicide | Apadana Media

Mohammed Moradi, the father of a young man detained in the November 2019 protests against Iran’s Islamic Republic regime committed suicide at his home on Monday, September 28, the Iranian website Emtedad News reports.

A Revolutionary Court in Tehran previously sentenced 26-year-old Amir Hossein Moradi to death, after he was arrested by security services and kept in a solitary confinement cell in Evin Prison for a month, also allegedly suffering beatings during his arrest and interrogation at the hands of security agents.

Per Emtedad News’ report, the cause of Moradi’s father’s suicide was “high psychological pressure,” “uncertainty,” and “concern about the execution of his son.”

Amir Hossein Moradi’s mother told Emtedad News that her husband’s body was found in the house’s basement.

“Before taking his life, he used to talk about his son until the last moment and wished that one day they would all sit at the same dining table again,” she said, adding that “hours after the suicide, the security forces were present at the house, as well as several reporters linked to the state-run Radio and TV network, who demanded an interview.”

Iranian civil rights activist Mehdi Mahmoudian said that the purpose of security forces’ presence at Moradi’s house was to obtain “forced confessions” from their family.

The execution of the younger Moradi, along with Saeed Tamjidi and Mohammad Rajabi, was announced last February. Tamjidi and Rajabi were also arrested during the mid-November 2019 protests that spread to more than 100 cities and 29 out 0f 31 provinces of Iran.

Moradi was sentenced to death on the charge of “cooperating in vandalism and arson with an intent to act against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” as well as sixteen years in prison and 74 lashes for the charge of “cooperation in nearly harmful armed robbery at night.”

Gholam-Hossein Esmaeili, the spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, confirmed the news of the three protesters’ death sentence on July 14 and accused them of “having links with certain ‘grouplets’ abroad.”

His remarks were widely condemned on social media, and the hashtag “do not execute”, which was seen billions of times around the world, became the primary Twitter trend for at least three hours.

Furthermore, top officials from some countries, including US President Donald Trump, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have called for Iran ending executions.

On July 16, UN human rights experts strongly condemned three protesters’ death sentences and called for the verdicts to be overturned. According to those experts, the three protesters were tortured to obtain confessions, and these confessions were later used against them in “unfair” trials.

Following widespread domestic and international protests, the lawyers of the three protesters announced on July 19 that the Supreme Court had agreed to reconsider their clients’ case and that “the execution of the defendants would be suspended until the final judicial decision on the issue.” However, over the past two months, no further news has been published on the process.

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