The Times: Horrific film of three public executions carried out in Iran was shown by exiled dissidents in London yesterday.
The ten-minute video, smuggled out of Iran in recent days by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, depicted the capital punishment of three young men for adultery. The Times
By Frances Gibb
Legal Editor
HORRIFIC film of three public executions carried out in Iran was shown by exiled dissidents in London yesterday.
The ten-minute video, smuggled out of Iran in recent days by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, depicted the capital punishment of three young men for adultery.
The audience of about 75 human rights lawyers, Iranian dissidents and journalists watched in silence as the men had nooses placed around their necks and were lifted off the ground by a mechanical crane mounted on a flat-bed lorry.
One woman cried audibly and several other members of the audience were moved to tears by the scenes that were filmed in secret last year but only just obtained. The group said that it was the first film of Iranian executions to be smuggled out of the country.
Kerry Pollard, a former Labour MP, who introduced the video at the headquarters of the Law Society in London, said: I have never in my life seen anything like that before and hope never to see it again. It is beyond shocking it is an abomination.
How human beings can do things like that to other human beings in the 21st century I do not know.
He urged the government and the EU to cease what he described as appeasement of the Iranian regime.
The group said that the hangings took place in Khoramabad, western Iran, last August.
