In August 2018, thousands of Iranians joined anti-government protests across Iran in another wave of widespread rejection of the Islamist regime. Navid Afkari, a wrestling champion, marched with two of his brothers and was detained by security forces.
After torturing Afkari for months and forcing him to confess to murdering a security guard, the regime sentenced him to death. A domestic and international outcry followed, but on Saturday Afkari, 27, was executed.
As is common under the Islamic Republic, Afkari’s case lacked any semblance of justice. There is a consensus that Afkari wasn’t merely the victim of an unjust judicial process but the target of deliberate assassination intended to silence public protest through sheer terror.
By killing a star athlete in defiance of international condemnation, the regime communicated an unmistakeable message to Iranians: Protest and we will kill you, no matter who you are.
To the international community, the regime recalls a famous saying of its founder, Ruhollah Khomeini, during the 1979-81 hostage crisis: “You can’t do a damn thing.”
Though shocking, Afkari’s killing is nothing new in Iran, where the past 41 years tell a story replete with state murder. There have been countless Navid Afkaris.
A recently released Amnesty International report describes in distressing detail how the Islamic Republic killed and tortured so many of those who took part in last November’s protests, including children.
Read the article by Reza Pahlavi in The Australian.