By Euronews
Published on
None of the people involved in recent nationwide protesters in Iran were included among the more than 2,100 people granted pardons or reduced sentences by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday, according to the judiciary.
The announcement comes ahead of the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution on Friday, an occasion that — along with other significant national dates — has been marked by the ayatollah approving similar pardons in past years.
“The leader of the Islamic revolution agreed to the request by the head of the judiciary to pardon or reduce or commute the sentences of 2,108 convicts,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.
However, this does not include “the defendants and convicts from the recent riots,” it said, quoting the judiciary’s deputy chief Ali Mozaffari.
Protests against the cost of living broke out in Iran in late December before evolving into nationwide anti-government demonstrations that peaked on 8 and 9 January.
Authorities responded with a crackdown that killed thousands of people and saw tens of thousands more detained. It was the bloodiest unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Tehran has said that at least 3,000 people died during the protests, including security forces and innocent bystanders, and attributed the violence to “terrorist acts,” but activists, insiders in Iran and international organisations have put the death toll far higher.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has verified 6,964 deaths, mostly protesters. The actual death toll — which remains difficult to determine due to a Tehran-instituted media blackout in the country — is feared to have surpassed 30,000, sources told Euronews.
Iranian security forces have launched a campaign to arrest figures within the country’s reformist movement, according to recent media reports in the country.
Detained Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi on Saturday received another prison sentence of at least seven years, said a group supporting her.
The human rights activist’s sentence includes six years imprisonment for assembly and collusion against national security and up to one-and-a-half years for propaganda against the government.
Local media reports quoted officials in the reformist movement, which seeks to change Iran’s theocracy from inside, as saying at least four of their members had been arrested.
It signals a widening effort to silence anyone opposed to the bloody suppression of unrest by Iran’s theocracy as it faces new nuclear talks with the United States.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned he could launch an attack on the country if no deal is reached.
Additional sources • AFP, AP