Iran has executed two men convicted of spying for Israel, and rights groups say the death penalty is being used with disturbing intensity. Tehran said the pair gave Mossad agents the coordinates of key military sites.
On Monday, Mizan, the Iranian judiciary’s news service, announced the executions. The two prisoners had been sentenced for espionage on behalf of Israel.
– Both were hanged for passing coordinates of sensitive military facilities to Mossad agents – Mizan reported.
Since February, when Iran’s war with Israel and the United States began, Tehran has intensified the use of capital punishment. The latest hangings fit into that broader wave of state repression.
Record execution numbers under scrutiny
Amnesty International has identified Iran as the world’s second most prolific user of capital punishment, after China. The organisation condemned the regime for what it described as an escalation in carrying out death sentences.
Norway-based Iran Human Rights and the Paris-based group Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) reported that at least 1,639 people were executed in Iran last year. That is the highest figure since 1989.
Protests and the regime’s death toll
Mizan also reported the execution of two other men who took part in the protests that swept Iran in January. Another prisoner was put to death on July 22. The authorities say four members of the Basij, a paramilitary force within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were killed during clashes with demonstrators.
Iran International data suggest that up to 36,500 people could have died while the protests were being suppressed. The regime itself admitted to 3,117 civilian deaths.
The authorities in Tehran are still carrying out sentences against those who were detained at the time.
Źródło: Polsat News, Fot. Polsat News
