PARIS: Iranian authorities on Tuesday executed a man convicted of helping to set fire to a major mosque in Tehran during protests in January, the judiciary said.
Amir Ali Mirjafari was accused of setting fire to the Gholhak Grand Mosque and also working with the Israeli espionage agency Mossad, the judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported.
He is the eighth person to be hanged over the January demonstrations within just over a month.
“By baselessly linking his participation in the January protests to Israel and the US, the Islamic Republic continues its strategy of framing domestic civil unrest as foreign espionage to expedite the execution of protesters,” Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said.
It was not clear when Mirjafari was arrested and “no independent information is available concerning him or his case,” it added.
IHR confirmed he was the eighth man put to death over the protests, after fast-track trials in line with the instructions of hard-line judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei.
Since executions resumed on March 19, Iranian authorities have also executed eight members, all men, of the People’s Mujahedin opposition group which is banned in Iran.
According to rights groups, one woman named as Bita Hemmati has been sentenced to death over the protests on charges of throwing concrete blocks from a building onto police.
