Iran Executes Young Jew Despite International Calls For Lesser Penalty

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

TEHRAN/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Iran executed early Monday a 20-year-old Iranian Jewish man, despite international calls for a lesser penalty, Israeli sources say.

Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani was denied a request for a retrial by Iran’s Supreme Court on May 25.

He was reportedly executed at Kermanshah Central Prison, about 525 kilometers (326 miles) from Tehran, the capital.

His death sentence comes at “a time of heightened tensions between Israel and Iran,” with Tehran threatening new strikes against the Jewish nation.

The Jewish man had been linked to killing Muslim Amir Shokri in self-defense when attacked with a knife two years ago in an apparent antisemitic attack, Israeli sources suggested.

Iranian prosecutors claimed Ghahramani “attacked the victim outside a gym in Kermanshah in 2022 and stabbed the man several times following a dispute over money he had loaned the victim.”

Under the Iranian penal code, retributive justice — or “Qisas” in Arabic — can be applied, an act under the Islamic penal code that calls for similar punishment or an “eye for an eye.”

PUNISHMENT AVOIDED

Iran’s judiciary says such punishment can only be avoided if family members forgive the perpetrator.

Hamid Reza Karimi, the prosecutor of the western city of Kermanshah, said in published remarks that “the court and the convicted man’s lawyers and relatives had failed to convince the victim’s family to abstain from Qisas.”

Advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) complained that Iranian law states that “if a non-Muslim kills a Muslim, Qisas can be carried out, and the perpetrator can be sentenced to death.”

However, “if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim in Iran, Qisas does not apply, and no punishment is handed down.”

Leading human rights experts argue that the law discriminates against minority groups in Iran, such as Jews and Christians.

Iran faced international calls not to execute the Jewish man amid concerns about a possible unfair trial in the Islamic Republic. Still, Tehran decided to carry out the death penalty early Monday.

Hanging is the only known method of state-backed execution in 21st-century Iran, usually carried out in prison.

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