Last week, the commander of the security forces in the city of Karaj, outside Tehran, reported that two men accused of kidnapping and rape had been executed in public. According to the commander, Hossein Haghighi, in May 2013, “a woman complained that she had been assaulted by two drivers. The identification of these two men became the responsibility of the security forces. In the course of the investigations aimed at finding the suspects and identifying other possible victims, three more plaintiffs’ complaints were added to the case.” There were reports that the two men had posed as drivers, but then proceeded to assault their passengers.
“Following the arrest of the two criminals, the prosecutor called for the maximum penalty,” added the commander. “The sentences were carried out in public” on Saturday, February 15th, in one of the city’s squares.
IranWire posted an unedited video of the executions, which was sent to us by one of our regular readers. We posted it in error and in contrary to IranWire’s editorial policy, but removed the video from the site within a few minutes. Today, we repost the same video, but this time, the actual execution scenes are blurred. According to several regular IranWire web visitors, who have seen both versions, the new film is in many ways more disturbing and violent than the original video. The blurring invites the viewer to use his or her imagination and visualize scenes even more violent and heartbreaking than those captured by the camera.
Over the last two weeks, we have published a range of articles and reports on the death penalty, and particularly against executions carried out in public. We would like to state that our objective is absolutely not to promote violence. We aim to report on a tragedy that is taking place in our country on a daily basis, a tragedy that is bound to have adverse effects on future generations of Iranians.
If you are sensitive to scenes of violence, even when religious beliefs are used to justify and promote violence in public, then do not watch this video.
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