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DUBAI/PARIS – An Iranian opposition leader criticised European countries on April 22 for doing too little to halt executions in Iran, after Tehran carried out another execution in what opponents say is a wartime crackdown on dissent.
The judiciary’s news outlet Mizan reported on April 22 that a man convicted of spying for Israel’s intelligence service and passing sensitive information had been executed.
“The silence of European Union leaders and member states in the face of this wave of political executions in Iran is unjustifiable,” said Ms Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political arm of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), in a speech at the European Parliament.
“Such silence not only emboldens the regime to continue executions, but also signals weakness, encouraging it to persist in nuclear weapons development and terrorist meddling in the region.”
Ms Rajavi said that prior to the April 22 execution, some 16 political prisoners had been executed in a month, including eight from the PMOI.
The Iranian authorities killed thousands of people during anti-government protests in January, Iran’s worst domestic unrest since the era of its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
When the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran at the end of February, they said one of their aims was to weaken the authorities so Iranians could topple the government.
But so far, there has been little sign of organised dissent in Iran during the war, and rights groups say the government has cracked down sharply on its opponents.
Norway-based human rights organisation Iran Human Rights said on April 21 that at least 3,646 people have been arrested, with at least 767 cases reported following the start of a ceasefire on April 8.
Amnesty International said earlier in April that it was “unconscionable that even as the population is reeling from conflict and mass bereavement amid the ongoing aerial bombardment by Israel and the USA, the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran continue to weaponise the death penalty to eradicate dissenting voices and further terrify people”. REUTERS
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