[Sunday’s execution in
Park-e Honarmandan (Artists Park), near the crime scene, was part of a
heavy-handed offensive by Iranian authorities, who say they are trying to
prevent rising crime rates from getting out of hand by setting harsh examples.
In recent weeks, public executions have been stepped up, and in several large
cities the police have been rounding up what they call thugs and hooligans.]
 |
Ebrahim Noroozi/Fars, via Associated Press
Iranians reacted in Tehran on Sunday at the
execution of two men, whose
stabbing of a man, caught on a video camera and posted online, caused an uproar. |
TEHRAN — An eerie silence
filled the air as a crowd of around 300 gathered Sunday just before sunrise in
a Tehran park. They awaited the arrival of two young men who were about to die.
The condemned stood
shoulder to shoulder, motionless, in front of two police trucks with two nooses
hanging from extendable cranes, about 15 feet high. Black-clad executioners
were inspecting the remote controls they would use to hang the men, both in
their early 20s, who were convicted of stabbing a man in November and stealing
his bag and the equivalent of $20.
From behind a makeshift
barrier of scaffolding, the crowd jostled for position. “Let’s move to the
other side,” one spectator whispered to his wife, pointing to the spot where
Iranian state television cameras had been set up. “I think we will have a
better view from there.”
Although every year
hundreds of convicts are hanged in Iran,
a public hanging in a central park in Tehran is a rare event. Most hangings
take place inside prisons, according to Iranian judicial officials and
international human rights organizations.
Sunday’s execution in
Park-e Honarmandan (Artists Park), near the crime scene, was part of a
heavy-handed offensive by Iranian authorities, who say they are trying to
prevent rising crime rates from getting out of hand by setting harsh examples.
In recent weeks, public executions have been stepped up, and in several large
cities the police have been rounding up what they call thugs and hooligans.
Police commanders and
other officials blame government mismanagement of the economy — which they say
has caused a rise in unemployment and inflation — for the increase in crime.
International economic sanctions have aggravated problems, many here say,
leading to a record gap between rich and poor in Iran.
While no official
statistics are publicly available, officials report a rise in violent crimes,
mostly perpetrated by young men attacking their victims with knives to get
money and other valuables. Local news media report only a fraction of the
episodes, but at social gatherings of middle-class Iranians — the usual targets
— horrific stories of theft, kidnapping, rape and home burglaries abound.
“Two young men entered
my house two weeks ago and beat me senseless,” said Manijeh, 54, a homemaker
from north Tehran, a more affluent section of the city. The intruders bound her
arms and legs and beat her, asking for the location of the safe, she said. “But
we don’t have a safe,” said Manijeh, who declined to reveal her surname out of
fear that the burglars would return. They stole her car, ransacked her home and
took nearly everything inside, she said.
“Our city has become
completely unsafe,” said Manijeh, speaking after her recent release from a
hospital. “These things would never happen until some years ago. We need the
harshest measures to stop these criminals.”
Armin, 30, an engineer,
said his father was recently robbed and beaten by a gang of thieves on
motorcycles. “They hit him hard, but afterwards he received an anonymous call
telling him where to find his bag,” he said. “They took all his money but
returned his documents.”
On Sunday, the two
condemned men, Alireza Mafiha, 23, and Mohammad Ali Sarvari, 20, stood before
the onlookers, many of whom said they were family members and friends.
“They have shaved his
hair,” said one young man pointing at Mr. Mafiha who said he knew both men. Mr.
Sarvari, baby-faced, stared wide-eyed into the crowd.
The two men, both
unemployed and from poor families, had been caught two months ago on a security
camera robbing a man and stabbing him, helped by two accomplices. Video from
the crime spread on the Internet and caused a widespread uproar, prompting
politicians and clerics to call for harsh measures.
Two weeks later, all
four men were arrested. The head of Iran’s judiciary, Ayatollah Sadegh
Larijani, made it clear in comments on the crime that even though their victim
had not died, a death sentence for the two main defendants, Mr. Mafiha and Mr.
Sarvari, was likely. “We need to act assertively and increase the costs for
those committing street crimes,” he said, according to the semiofficial Fars
news agency.
During their trial, Mr.
Mafiha said he needed money to pay for an operation for his mother. He and Mr.
Sarvari had both lost their fathers at an early age, their lawyer explained.
“We needed the money because of poverty; I am sorry,” said Mr. Mafiha, the
semiofficial Iranian Students’ News Agency reported in December.
Judge Abdolghassem
Salavati, notorious for his harsh treatment of those arrested during intense
street protests in 2009, convicted both men of being “mohareb,” a Shiite legal
term that translates as “waging war against God”; the crime carries the death
sentence in Iran. Judge Salavati said the two men had threatened public
security and caused fear and intimidation. He sentenced each of their two
accomplices to 10 years in prison, followed by five years in exile in a
provincial town, and also to 74 lashes.
Many in Tehran applauded
the harsh sentence for Mr. Mafiha and Mr. Sarvari, saying they hoped that it
would make criminals think twice about attacking people. But others doubted
that would happen.
“The number of quarrels,
suicide, murder and crime are all up,” Amanollah Qaraei Moghadam, a
sociologist, recently wrote on Mellat Online, an Internet news site. “It is 100
percent clear the situation will not change unless the economy improves.”
Other critics said the
punishment was far too severe. “Why were these men executed? They didn’t kill
anybody,” said Saleh Nikbakht, a lawyer who regularly defends dissidents and
political activists. “More severe punishments will not mean there will be less
crimes. We have deeper problems.”
On Sunday, as the sun
slowly started rising in the east of Tehran, the executioners led Mr. Mafiha
and Mr. Sarvari to the cranes. Three young women in the crowd begged for
forgiveness, but a representative of Iran’s judiciary described the crime and
read out the verdict.
Mr. Mafiha, in tears,
laid his head on the shoulder of one of the executioners, who placed his arm
around him. After the nooses were placed around their necks, both men were
pulled up by the two cranes. They died silently as many in the crowd shouted in
protest, while others used smartphone cameras to record the scene.
“This is not fair,” said
one young man, crying loudly while being dragged away by another friend. “If
they hadn’t been caught on camera this would have never happened to them.”
Ramtin Rastin contributed reporting. This article has been
revised to reflect the following correction: