“We strongly condemn the execution of Reza Rasaei by the Iranian regime and its attempt to distract the world from its continued human rights abuses,” wrote the U.S. Office of the Special Envoy for Iran on the social media platform X.
Thirty-four-year-old Reza Rasaei was from the Kurdish and Yarsan communities in Iran. He was arrested in Kermanshah province during the anti-government protests in 2022. Those protests were part of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement that swept the country after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish Iranian woman detained for violating Iran’s compulsory hijab law. Some 18,000 people were reportedly arrested during the subsequent protests; hundreds more were killed. Rasaei was charged with involvement in the murder of a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, and in October 2023 he was sentenced to death. Amnesty International and other human rights organizations claim Rasaie’s trial was grossly unfair and that he was subjected to torture and abuse.
Rasaie was executed on August 6, bringing to 10 the number of individuals executed for purported crimes during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests. His execution took place one day after the UN Human Rights Council released a report from the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Iran. According to the Mission, the Iranian government’s crackdown on protesters since 2022 disproportionally impacted ethnic and religious minorities in Iran, particularly Kurd and Baluch minorities.
The report noted that the pre-existing security presence in Iran’s border provinces, predominantly inhabited by ethnic and religious minorities, “created a permissive environment for the State to repress the September 2022 protests, including through launching a militarized response almost immediately after the movement began.” The report said, “Violations of … the rights of members of minorities were amplified in the context of the September 2022 protests, and the Mission found that some of these amounted to crimes against humanity.” The report deplored the lack of accountability for these crimes.
Reza Rasaei is the latest known victim and the latest member of Iran’s minority communities to be executed after exercising his fundamental rights to free expression and association. As the Office of the Special Envoy for Iran wrote: “Tehran’s continued use of the death penalty against Woman, Life, Freedom protesters – following sham trials and forced confessions – is reprehensible. We remain committed to holding the Iranian regime to account for its significant human rights abuses.”
