Kurdish Sunni cleric Mohammad Khezrnejad has been sentenced to death for eulogizing a young man who was killed during the protests that swept Iran in 2022 after the killing of Mahsa Amini by the Tehran "morality police," according to Iranian human rights organizations.
Khezrnejad was arrested in November 2022 after delivering a speech at the memorial ceremony of Asad Rahimi, a 30-year-old from Bukan who was killed during the protests. He also expressed support for the protesters on various occasions, including by signing a joint statement with other Sunni clerics calling for a referendum in Iran and the release of political prisoners and condemning the violence used against protesters.
According to the Hengaw, Khezrnejad was charged with "spreading corruption on earth," "harming the territorial integrity and independence of the country," and "propaganda against the regime." The charge of "spreading corruption on earth" is often used by the regime against anti-government protesters.
The cleric was denied to right to access a lawyer during his trial, which was held over video conference, and the judge was not even willing to hear a defense from him, sources close to the cleric's family told Hengaw. The sentence was delivered by the third branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Urmia.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network reported that Khezrnejad was abused during his detention and pushed into forced confessions. A recorded video of him providing a forced confession was used by the Intelligence Ministry during his trial. During the trial, Khezrnejad said the confessions were forced and questioned the competence of the Revolutionary Court to handle the case due to his status as a cleric, according to the organization.
What were the 'Woman, Life, Liberty' protests?
In the fall and winter of 2022, intense nationwide demonstrations, commonly referred to as the “Woman, Life, Liberty” (“Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” in Kurdish) protests, swept Iran after Mahsa Amini, an Iranian-Kurdish woman, was arrested and beaten by “morality police” officers in Tehran in mid-September of 2022 for allegedly incorrectly wearing her hijab. Amini died shortly after due to her wounds.
The protests drew the world’s attention, with videos showing demonstrators openly clashing with Iranian security forces in an unprecedented way. In several videos shared online, armed security forces could be seen fleeing as masses of protesters confronted their attempts to suppress the demonstrations.
In August, the commander-in-chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Salami, called the protests “the strongest, most dangerous, and most serious” such demonstrations in the regime’s history.