IRAN EXECUTES TWO IN BID TO DETER FUTURE PROTESTS

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 RPO DUBAI 000027

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 2020/02/02
TAGS: PGOV IR PHUM
SUBJECT: IRAN EXECUTES TWO IN BID TO DETER FUTURE PROTESTS

REF: DUBAI RPO 439

CLASSIFIED BY: Charles Pennypacker, Consular Officer, DOS, IRPO;
REASON: 1.4(B),(D)


1. (C) SUMMARY: On January 28 Iran executed two men the government
has sought to link with the "foreign hands" behind the
post-Presidential election unrest. Their executions, coupled with
the announcement that six other have also been sentenced to death,
while still more detainees face charges likely to draw the death
penalty, come less than two weeks before the February 11
anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, a day on which the Green
Path Opposition hopes to put significant numbers on the streets.
Opposition leaders and activists had initially kept their distance
from the two men, whom the government alleges were linked to
monarchists and the reviled MEK. However, their executions and the
subsequent surge of death sentences and charges punishable by death
elicited sharp condemnation by both Mousavi and Khatami. END
SUMMARY.




2. (C) On January 28 Iran executed two men convicted of "moharebeh"
('warring against God') following one of the show trials held in
summer 2009 in the wake of the disputed presidential election.
Death sentences for Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani, Arash Rahmanipour and
three other men were first issued in October 2009, at which time
IRIG officials told the press that four of the men supported the
obscure 'Iran Empire Society' ('Anjoman-e Padeshahi-ye Iran)
royalist group, accused the fifth of supporting the Mujahedin
al-Khalq (MEK),and alleged the men had been engaged in a number of
plots supported by the U.S. and Israel designed to destabilize the
Islamic Republic, both before and after the election. Initial
regime efforts to link Zamani and Rahmanipour group to the election
protests puzzled mainstream Green Path Opposition (GPO) leaders and
activists because neither man had ties to the popular movement and
both were arrested months before the election (reftel). GPO
leaders did not comment on the preliminary death sentences, likely
hoping to distance themselves from the regime's ploy to cast the
popular protests as the product of foreign machinations.




3. (C) However the executions themselves elicited strong and direct
after the fact criticism from GPO titular leaders Mousavi and
Khatami, as oppositionists both inside and out of Iran condemned
the state action as a blatant and brutal effort to intimidate
would-be protestors from taking to the streets on the February 11
anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. The criticism was
compounded as family members of the two men began to speak publicly
about the travesty of justice that led their executions.
Rahmanipour's father has been particularly vocal, giving many press
interviews in which he called his son "a martyr for democracy" and
described how his son was coerced into 'confessing': in one
example, the father said his pregnant daughter was imprisoned for
over two months until Arash agreed to confess. According to the
father, she miscarried as a result of her imprisonment.
Rahmanipour's attorney has also publicly countered Tehran Chief
Prosecutor's defense of the judicial process, telling the press
that she was not allowed to attend any stage of the proceedings.




4. (S) Ominously, while announcing the two executions January 28 a
Judiciary spokesman also told journalists that nine other death
sentences are currently before the appeals court awaiting final
confirmation. Three of the nine are presumably of the group whose
sentences were announced in October. According to a leading human
rights advocate based outside of Iran, the other six were tried and
convicted in the flurry of trials conducted after Ashura (December
27). Our contact maintains that most (possibly all) of the six had
"recently" visited relatives in Iraq and Europe who are in fact MEK
members. Though not proper MEK members themselves, several of them
may have sent photographs or videos of protests in Iran for use on
MEK websites.




5. (S) One January 31, 16 people identified by the government as
"Ashura rioters" also went on trial in proceedings broadcast on
state television. Five of the 16 have been charged with 'warring
against God' and could thus be sentenced to death as well. Reports
from family members of the accused based outside of Iran indicate
that this group includes a cousin of Sohrab Arabi, a protestor shot
by the security forces last July who has become an icon of the

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opposition much like Neda Soltani, and close relatives of one of
the seven Bahai leaders also currently on trial.




6. (C) COMMENT: Judiciary Chief Larijani asserted on February 1
that executions levied by Iran's courts would continue regardless
of criticism and "political pressure," and during January 30 Tehran
Friday Prayers Guardian Council head Ayatollah Jannati praised the
executions as "divine justice." Though the real reasons behind the
March 2009 arrests of the two men executed January 28 remain murky,
the government's unsophisticated efforts to use them to
delegitimize the post-election protest movement are clear. With
this recent flurry of arrests, trials, convictions and now
executions, the government has ratcheted up its campaign to
intimidate the GPO on the eve of February 11 planned
demonstrations. So far there has been minimal domestic backlash to
these executions on either the elite or popular level, and as such
it is unclear whether the regime will feel emboldened to continue
to execute increasingly important detainees as needed. END
COMMENT.
EYRE