Iran executes 2 men accused of seeking to topple the state

Iran hangs 2 for allegedly aiming to topple state

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran on Thursday executed two men accused of involvement in an armed anti-government group, as the public prosecutor announced that new death sentences have been issued against opposition activists involved in protests over June’s disputed presidential election.

The announcements marked an escalation by the courts enforcing the clerical leadership’s heavy, monthslong crackdown aimed at crushing the opposition challenge. The prosecutor also said a new group of protesters and others would soon be brought to trial.

The two men, who were hanged before dawn Thursday, had been arrested before the election and did not appear to be connected to the postelection protests.

But they were put before the same mass trial as opposition leaders and activists arrested amid the crackdown, and state media Thursday depicted the two as part of the protest movement, a sign of how the government has used the unrest as an opportunity to pursue other enemies.

The media’s depiction of the executions may aim to intimidate the opposition ahead of new street demonstrations expected in February.

In a further move likely aimed at cowing protesters, Tehran’s prosecutor announced that five people have been sentenced to death for involvement in the most recent major demonstration, on Dec. 27. That day saw the worst violence of the crackdown, with at least eight people killed in clashes between police and protesters and hundreds arrested.

The new verdicts raise to nine the number of people sentenced to death for involvement in protests, said the prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi.

He also announced that another group of the postelection detainees would go on trial on Saturday. He said the trial will demonstrate the role of “leftists, Bahais and those who were directed by foreign hands” in the postelection turmoil. He did not say how many new defendants would go on trial.

Iranian authorities regularly accuse the U.S., Britain and other foreign enemies of fueling the unrest in a bid to oust the country’s clerical leaders. They have also accused followers of the Bahai faith, which is illegal in Iran because it is seen as heretical.

The two men who were executed, Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour, were convicted by a Revolutionary Court of belonging to “counterrevolutionary and monarchist groups,” plotting to overthrow “the Islamic establishment” and planning assassinations and bombings, Dowlatabadi told state TV.

He said the two confessed during the trial and that an appeals court upheld their death sentences. He made no mention of the postelection protests in connection to the case.

White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton on Thursday said the executions represent a new low in Iran’s crackdown on peaceful dissent and will further isolate Tehran.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, for his part, condemned what he called the “TV show trials” that convicted the two.

“The trials and now these subsequent executions undermine Iran’s claimed commitment to justice, human rights and democratic values,” he said.    

Rahmanipour’s lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, told the Associated Press Thursday that the 20-year-old Rahmanipour was arrested in April on the charge of membership in an armed opposition group, the Royal Association of Iran.

She said his trial and verdict were “unfair and illegal,” saying his lawyer was not allowed to participate in the court sessions and he was forced to confess. She said she and Rahmanipour’s relatives had not been notified of any appeal’s court ruling upholding the death sentences.

Ann Harrison, an Iran expert at the London-based rights group Amnesty International, said that Zamani was also arrested before the June election.

Iran’s English language channel, Press TV, said that among the charges against the two was that they had a role in the 2008 bombing of a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz.

Still, state TV portrayed the executions as part of the postelection crackdown. In a report aired on the channel and reported on its Web site, it said Rahmanipour and Zamani were sentenced to death along with the nine others “in the wake of the rioting and counterrevolutionary and antiestablishment acts of recent months.” Along with the charges laid out by the prosecutor, it said they were convicted on the charge of “moharebeh,” or defying God.

Harrison said the two were arrested before the elections but were dragged into the postelection crackdown “as part of these mass show trials. Their indictments show the authorities are trying to create a kind of conspiracy, to say that foreign groups and countries are involved to discredit the opposition.”

“The tactics they are resorting to are executions as means of warning the people against participating in further demonstrations,” she told The Associated Press.

The opposition says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the June presidential election through fraud. Hundreds of thousands have poured into the streets in Iran since then on various occasions to support Ahmadinejad’s main challenger, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Dozens of protesters were killed in the unrest and hundreds detained since June.

Iran has put on trial more then 100 political activists and figures since August. The defendants have included not only those directly involved in protests but also opposition politicians and writers — a sign that the leadership has used the turmoil as an opportunity to cast a wide net in pursuing its various opponents. More than 80 of those on trial have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from six months to 15 years.

Previously, authorities had said five of those on trial had been sentenced to death. The five more announced by Dowlatabadi should raise the total to 10, but he spoke only of nine. There was no explanation for the discrepancy, but it appeared to be a sign of how others — like Rahmanipour and Zamani — have been lumped in with the protest movement.

AP correspondent Katarina Kratovac in Cairo contributed to this report.