Iran: Regime Executes Political Prisoner Milad Zohrevand For Participating In Nationwide Uprising – OpEd
By Mahin Horri
Iran’s regime executed political prisoner Milad Zohrevand on Thursday in the Central Prison of Hamedan without informing his family.
Zohrevand, 21, who hailed from Malayer, western Iran, was injured and arrested by security forces on October 27, 2022, during the nationwide uprising that began in September, after the regime’s so-called morality police murdered 21-year-old Mahsa Amini for supposedly violating the regime’s misogynistic dress code.
The regime’s criminal judiciary sentenced Zohrevand to death on charges of killing a member of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) named Ali Nazari. The regime’s supreme court later upheld the death sentence. After the criminal secret execution of Zohrevand, the regime dispatched security forces across the city of Malayer in anticipation and fear of anti-regime protests.
On Friday, the regime buried the body of Milad Zohrevand in Hamedan’s Bagh-e Behesht cemetery. Only 20 of his relatives were allowed to attend the ceremony, which was held under severe security measures. The regime refused to allow Zohrevand’s family to bury his body in his hometown of Malyer.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said that the heinous execution of Milad Zohrevand “reveals the clerical regime’s barbarity and its fear of the outburst of Iranian people’s anger and rage. Such crimes only strengthen the resolve of the Iranian people and youths, bringing closer the day of the regime’s overthrow.”
She urged the UN and EU to take urgent action to secure the freedom of imprisoned protesters and save the lives of death-row prisoners. “They should end their silence and inaction vis-à-vis the world’s record-holder of torture and execution in the 21st Century,” she said.
Milad Zohrevand was the eight political prisoner to be executed in relation to Iran’s 2022 nationwide uprising. On December 8, 2022, the regime executed 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari. Four days later, the regime hanged 23-year-old Majidreza Rahnavard. in In January, the regime ruling Iran executed Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, two protesters who were brutally tortured and forced to make incriminating confessions about killing a Basij member. In May, the regime executed Saleh Mirhashemi, Saeed Yaghoubi, and Majid Kazemi, again in relation with the protests.
Javad Rouhi, another political prisoner arrested during the uprising died under suspicious conditions in Nowshahr prison in September. Rouhi was sentenced to death for his participation in the protests and evidence strongly indicates he was murdered by regime authorities in the prison.
During the uprising, regime security forces killed more than 750 civilians and arrested tens of thousands. Dozens were sentenced to death. Prisoners were brutally tortured and mistreated and several prisoners committed suicide after their release due to the stress caused by the torture and reports that regime authorities injected them with drugs that caused severe depression.
