Iran executes man over killing of Revolutionary Guards colonel in 2022 protests
Tehran, Iran — Iran executed a man on Tuesday after courts convicted him of killing a Revolutionary Guards officer during nationwide protests in 2022, the judiciary said.
"Gholamreza Rasaei was executed this morning [Tuesday] in Kermanshah prison" in western Iran for "stabbing to death a Revolutionary Guards colonel during the illegal protests in November 2022," the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported.
The colonel, Nader Bayrami, was in charge of the Guards' intelligence unit in Sahneh city of Kermanshah province in Iran's Kurdish region, according to the Tasnim news agency.
The country's Kurdish region was one of the centers of the protests that followed the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurd, in police custody.
Amini, 22, had been arrested in Tehran for an alleged breach of Iran's strict dress code for women.
Hundreds of people were killed during the demonstrations, including dozens of security personnel, and thousands more arrested in what officials labeled foreign-instigated "riots."
Mizan said Rasaei was sentenced to death in October 2023 in accordance with Islamic Sharia law on "retribution," and the verdict was later upheld by the Supreme Court.
His execution brings to 10 the number of people put to death on charges of murder or other violence against security forces personnel during the protests.
The European Union's diplomatic service released a statement condemning the execution "in the strongest terms" and urging Iran to end capital punishment as a response to domestic dissent.
"The death penalty is a cruel and inhumane punishment, which fails to act as a deterrent to crime and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity," it added.
The covering of the neck and head became compulsory for women in Iran a few years after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
For a while after the protests, women increasingly flouted the dress code, but in recent months police have taken tougher steps against women who ignore the rules.
Iran executes more people per year than any other nation except China, according to human rights groups including Amnesty International.
Iran generally carries out executions by hanging.