Iran cracks down on dissent with hangings, jail

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Sep. 13 – One person was hanged and 13 others were imprisoned in West Azerbaijan Province, northwest Iran, as part of new wave of crackdown on dissent which began last week, Iran’s State Security Forces (SSF) announced on Tuesday. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Sep. 13 – One person was hanged and 13 others were imprisoned in West Azerbaijan Province, northwest Iran, as part of new wave of crackdown on dissent which began last week, Iran’s State Security Forces (SSF) announced on Tuesday.

Major Rezai, chief spokesman of the SSF in the province, said, “We have been implementing the plan to remove trouble-makers in the province, and so far 13 such persons have been sent to prison”.

One “trouble-maker” was hanged in the town of Naqadeh, the police spokesman announced.

Rezai added that with harsher sentences from judges, the problem of trouble-makers, which had increased in recent months, would be resolved.

Tuesday morning’s edition of the hard-line daily Jomhouri Islami wrote that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had recently ordered the head of the country’s judiciary to deal “decisively” with “elements creating disruption in society” and sentence them to “the most severe punishment that God has prescribed”.

“The Supreme Leader has issued an order to deal decisively with trouble-makers”, the daily quoted the head of Tehran’s Justice Department, Abbas-Ali Alizadeh, as saying.