Iran has executed a teenage musician for participating in the January protests.
Amirhossein Hatami, 18, was hanged in the notorious Ghezel Hesar prison outside the capital yesterday, despite hopes he would be spared because of his age.
The talented guitarist was arrested on January 8 and accused of committing arson against the feared Basij paramilitary’s base in Tehran during anti-regime protests.
He was held in solitary confinement for weeks, his long, curly black hair was shaved off, and he was paraded on national television being brutally interrogated.
Amirhossein was convicted of ‘Moharebeh’ (‘Enmity Against God’) and sentenced to death on February 7. On Thursday, the judiciary announced he had been ‘hanged at dawn’.
The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online website said he acted ‘against national security’ on behalf of Israel and the United States by breaking into ‘a military centre and destroying it in order to seize the weapons stored there’ during the protests.
But Amnesty International said it was ‘outraged by the arbitrary execution of the teenage protester’, adding the trial was ‘grossly unfair’ and that he had been sentenced to death less than a month after his arrest.
Now fears are growing for dozens more on death row, with reports that four other men have been moved to pre-execution solitary confinement in the same prison as the teenager.