Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, January 27, 2021—Iran’s genocidal regime executed another wrestler, 30-year-old Mehdi Ali Hosseini, on January 25. Hosseini, who was from Andimeshk, southwest Iran, had been in prison since 2015. He is the second wrestler executed by the Iranian regime in the past year. The regime executed Hosseini despite international calls for sparing his life.
Previously, the regime executed the 27-year-old wrestling champion Navid Afkari, who had been arrested during the 2018 anti-regime protests in Shiraz and sentenced to death based on confessions obtained under torture.
According to human rights organizations, the Iranian regime’s judiciary and penal system repeatedly tortured Navid Afkari into admitting a killing he did not carry out.
In a letter, on August 31, 2020, Navid Afkari described the horrific physical and psychological tortures inflicted on him by the regime’s authorities.
“For around 50 days I had to endure the most horrendous physical and psychological tortures. They would beat me with sticks and batons, hitting my arms, legs, abdomen, and back. They would place a plastic bag on my head and torture me until I suffocated to the very brink of death. They also poured alcohol into my nose,” the letter reads.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) called once again to refer the regime’s dossier of human rights crimes to the UN Security Council where its “leaders must face justice for decades of crime against humanity.”
The dossier of the clerical regime’s crimes in #Iran must be referred to the UN Security Council; its leaders must face justice for 4 decades of crime against humanity. #NoImpunity4Mullahs
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) January 25, 2021
Mrs. Rajavi stressed that executions are the mullahs’ instrument to consolidate their rule since the “The clerical regime cannot stay in power for even one day without torture and executions.”
Also, on January 14, the NCRI’s Sports Committee made urgent calls to the international community and United Nations’ human rights groups to save the life of Mehdi Ali Hosseini.
In the past month, the Iranian regime has been on a killing spree, carrying out dozens of executions in different cities across Iran. These executions are carried out in blatant breach of internationally recognized standards, including due process. These barbaric acts are the flipside of the coin of exporting terrorism to the Middle East, both of which serve as pillars that help preserve the medieval regime in power.
Once again, the Iranian Resistance reiterates its call on the United Nations Secretary-General, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Human Rights Council, and all human rights defenders, as well as the European Union and its member states, to condemn the heinous execution of Mehdi Ali Hosseini and take immediate action to save the lives of prisoners on the death row.
