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JUSTIN TALLIS via Getty Images
Iranian wrestling champion Navid Afkari has lost his battle for life. Today he was executed in a Shiraz prison, after two death sentences for killing a public official during one of the many demonstrations that took place in Iran in 2018 – protests all stemming from deep economic and social unrest, but in many cases The cases had also ended up inverting the system and the highest officials of the Islamic Republic.
The international mobilization for Navid’s safety was therefore futile, and Amnesty International also appealed to the international community to intervene with the Iranian authorities to save him from execution. The two brothers had also been convicted with him. Vahid and Habib, who were sentenced to 54 and 27 years in prison. All three had reported being tortured in prison, Vahid had confessed publicly on state television, but later retracted because his confession was tortured by him, said his lawyer Hassan Younesi. The request for revision of the sentence was summarily rejected by the Supreme Court.
According to Iranwire, the family of the man who allegedly killed the athlete – Hassan Torkaman, a local member of Basiji, the Pasdaran Volunteer Corps – he had granted his forgiveness, or at least had started negotiating to do so. In these cases, the Islamic law of “qesas” provides for a prison sentence and compensation for family members, the so-called “price of blood”. The news of the pardon was denied by the local judicial authorities, but confirmed by other sources, including the lawyer himself. But the athlete, precisely for participating in the protests, was also accused of “moharebeh”, that is, of having waged war against God, in fact, against the system of the Islamic Republic.
The leaders of various international sports organizations had also been spent for the athlete’s safety, and unfortunately also US President Donald Trump himself, an elephant among repeat offenders, who in a tweet had argued that Navid’s only fault had been to participate in an anti-government protest, “against the worsening economic situation of the country,” as if his policy of maximum pressure against Iran was not at least partly responsible for this deterioration.
Zarif arrives in Europe, his diplomacy cannot neglect human rights
In any case, Navid’s execution is not exactly the best per diem for the tour that Iranian minister Javad Zarif is preparing to do next week in various European capitals, and that should happen next Tuesday also for Rome. At the center of the talks is the return of all – Iran and European partners – to compliance with the Iranian nuclear agreement (Jcpoa), from which Trump unilaterally withdrew three years ago: in recent days the United States has failed in its attempt at Council Security Council to restore sanctions against Tehran, and this also thanks to London, Paris and Berlin. But the grateful Minister Zarif announced himself with a tweet saying that if they really want to return to full compliance with the agreement, Europeans must also “reject US economic terrorism.”as they have already rejected their vandalism“At the United Nations. And perhaps Zarif will not be helped at his London meeting by not even the fact that tomorrow Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the Anglo-Iranian citizen imprisoned for four years in Iran accused of having worked against the government, but recently under house arrest, will have to appear before a judge to be notified of the new charges against her.
Of course, the Iranian judiciary is independent and from the executive and each yesThe judicial system must be independent from other state powers and also from international pressure, if it believes that it has acted in the right way. But it is well known that the Iranian judiciary is also an ultra-conservative compact body, and that it has often put a spoke in the wheel of reformist and moderate governments. This was also true for the Hassan Rouhani government, which on the other hand now has its hands much more tied than before, after the defeat suffered at the domestic political level and the drastic fall in popular support due to the failure of the nuclear agreement. that was left in a dead letter to the detriment above all of the Iranian economy and the consequent ability of the country to respond effectively to the Covid pandemic.
The real dominus in Iran are now the Pasdaran, and Europe cannot call itself
The true dominance on the Iranian scene is now the body of Pasdaran, an economic and political potentate and not just a military one. Given the policies adopted by this US administration, we will never know what Iran would have been like today if everything had gone as it should, and if the detente produced by the Jcpoa had also borne fruit in an improvement in the situation of freedoms and rights on the plane. . inside. Perhaps, in this world of “yes” left by Trump’s first presidential term, Navid Afkari would still be alive and so many protesters were killed in the November protests; and also the passengers of the civilian flight killed by mistake by the anti-aircraft Pasdaran after the assassination of General Soleimani. And perhaps the human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh had not already spent the first month of a hunger strike to protest the prison conditions of all prisoners of ‘conscience’ like her. Who knows maybe. But certainly Europe could have done more to avoid this tragic spiral in which the lives of so many Iranians have been engulfed and in which so many others are still struggling to survive.
The fact is that, when the Iranian authorities demand the independence of their judicial system, they must also demonstrate, first of all to their compatriots, that Navid was indeed guilty, that he had not been subjected to pressure or torture, that his right to defense and defense later Degrees of judgment had been respected. And then they should also explain what the crime of “making war against God” consists of. And again, the Iranian authorities tell us: perhaps among the 99 titles of Allah there is also that of being “the merciful” in all possible nuances, “the compassionate” and “the one who absolves everything”? Is it not in the name of this divine mercy that every politician and official of the Islamic Republic initiates every public intervention, at home and abroad?
Tell us, the leaders of this Islamic Republic, how sincerely Muslim you really are. And if they really want to dialogue with the world (and they have many reasons on their side about respecting the JCOPA and the international law violated by the United States), they also respect the right of the accused to a fair trial and impose a moratorium on all executions. A moratorium on the death penalty is a sign of civilization, in line with that ancient Persian civilization that Iran rightly claims as its own. Thus, the Islamic Republic could demonstrate, in this field, its moral superiority over the United States, where the death penalty is still applied. And compared to other equally Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia, for example: an absolute monarchy, and not a republic, that does not hang the condemned, but beheads them with the sword, and that uncomfortable journalists massacres and destroy them in the their consulates. Iranian politicians can be subtle diplomats, Minister Zarif arriving in Europe has repeatedly shown. Now, finally, that they show us that they have a true strategic foresight also in the management of internal affairs, and not only in their foreign policy.
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