Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, October 1, 2021—After spending 20 years in Iran’s harsh prisons, Abbas-Gholi Salehi was executed on Wednesday morning in Isfahan’s Dastgerd prison. Iran’s regime executed Salehi while he had been acquitted of the charges that had sentenced him to death.
On Tuesday, the regime informed Salehi’s family that he had been sentenced to death in an immediate court ruling and the sentence would be carried out the next day.
The night prior to Salehi’s execution, a large group of locals had gathered in front of the prison to call for the revoking of the sentence. Regime authorities have forced Salehi’s family to remain silent and threatened to press bogus charges against his brother, who is also in prison.
Abbas-Gholi, 42, was 22 years old when he was arrested. One of the known tactics of the Iranian regime is to execute ordinary prisoners to create fear among the public. There have been numerous accounts of regime authorities torturing prisoners and forcing them to confess to crimes they haven’t committed.
Contrary to the regime’s desire however, Salehi’s execution was met not with fear but with public outrage. On Thursday, a large group of people in Yazdanshahr, Isfahan province, gathered to commemorate Salehi while singing songs and chanting slogans about revenge.
September 30 – Yazdanshahr, Isfahan province, #Iran
Funeral ceremony of Abbasgholi Salehi who was executed early Wednesday morning local time after enduring 20 years in Isfahan prison.pic.twitter.com/AITKHaJvaE— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) September 30, 2021
The Iranian regime is faced with an increasingly restive society that is on the verge of another nationwide uprising. The regime has resorted to all sorts of tactics to keep the population in check, including the beating and humiliation of youth in the streets, execution of political and ordinary prisoners, and other repressive measures.
The regime’s new government cabinet, led by regime president Ebrahim Raisi, a notorious executioner, reflects the regime’s fear of the explosive state of the society. Ali Khamenei, the regime’s supreme leader, has appointed other career criminals in key positions of power to ensure the regime has a seamless response to social unrest. Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, the regime’s new chief of judiciary, is another renowned executioner judge who has been blacklisted for his human rights violations against political dissidents and protesters. And Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of the Majlis (parliament), is a former Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) commander who has expressed pride in cracking down on protesters.
The execution of Salehi is the latest manifestation of the regime’s desperation to maintain control over an 80-million strong population that no longer wants it.
As Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said, “Mr. Salehi’s execution in Isfahan after 20 years shows the cruelty of the clerical regime that cannot continue its rule for even on day without torture and executions.”
Mr. Salehi’s execution in Isfahan after 20 years shows the cruelty of the clerical regime that cannot continue its rule for even one day without torture and executions. #NoImpunity4Mullahs
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) September 30, 2021
However, the large rally that took place before and after Salehi’s execution shows that the regime’s repression apparatus is fast losing its effectiveness.
This is not an isolated event. Last week, after the regime’s security forces killed a youth from Ilam province under torture, a large group of people from Ilam headed for Tehran and held a protest rally in front of the Greater Tehran Prison (Fashafuyeh), where the prisoner was murdered.
And the mothers of the martyrs of the 2019 protests have become a very vocal movement who are constantly broadcasting messages against the regime and repeating the slogan that has become very popular across Iran: “We will neither forget, nor forgive.”
The people of Iran, who have nothing to lose but their miseries under the rule of the mullahs, are no longer afraid of the regime and its brutal security forces. And every single execution adds to their ire and outrage and their desire to topple this regime.
