Iran executes another wrestler despite US, international outcry, reports say
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Iran has executed another decorated wrestler this week despite international outcry and condemnation from the U.S. State Department, according to reports.
Mehdi Ali Hosseini was put to death at a prison in the city of Dezful on Monday, Al Arabiya reported, citing a local news outlet. A judiciary official there also confirmed the execution to the state-run ISNA News Agency.
A top U.S. State Department official came out swinging earlier this month against Iran’s plan to execute Hosseini after Tehran’s rulers publicly hanged the champion wrestler Navid Afkari in September on widely criticized, trumped-up charges.
IRANIAN EXECUTIONS SPARK OUTRAGE FROM THE US
“The Iranian regime must be held to account for their vile human rights abuses and their attempt to cling to power through execution,” Ellie Cohanim, the State Department’s deputy special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, had told Fox News.
Hosseini, who is from Andimeshk in the province of Khuzestan, was arrested in 2015 and charged with premeditated murder, supposedly committed during a group brawl. It is unclear, though, whether Iran’s regime forced Hosseini to confess to a crime he did not commit.
Iran’s opaque judiciary and penal system repeatedly tortured Afkari into admitting a killing he did not carry out, according to human rights organizations and Western governments. The clerical rulers hanged Afkari for protesting in 2018 against the economic and political corruption of the regime controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Reports of Hosseini’s execution this week were met with further criticism from activist groups.
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“The clerical regime cannot survive even one day without execution, torture and repression in a bid to create a reign of terror to prevent escalation of popular uprising as it is engulfed with incurable internal and external crises,” the National Council of Resistance of Iran said.
“The Iranian Resistance reiterates its call on the United Nations Secretary-General, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Human Rights Council and all human rights defenders, as well as the European Union and its member states, to condemn the heinous execution of Mehdi Ali Hosseini and take immediate action to save the lives of prisoners on the death row,” it added.
Fox News’ Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.
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