Iran plans to execute three protesters provoke Twitter appeal

Fazel Hawramy

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region -- Barely a day goes by in Iran without news of an impending execution. But Tuesday proved exceptional, culminating in a 1.2 million tweet-strong storm that demanded the execution of three young men be ground to a halt by Iranian authorities.

“NoToExecution” trended globally for several hours on Tuesday night as hundreds of thousands of people in Iran and across the world posted the hashtag to raise awareness of the plight of three protesters in imminent danger of execution.

Earlier on Tuesday the Judiciary spokesperson Gholam Hossein Esmaili, while casually announcing the execution of a man charged with spying for the CIA, ended speculation about the fate of three protesters by saying that the Supreme Court has upheld the execution verdict from the Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran.

Amirhossein Moradi, 26, Saeed Tamjidi, 28 and Mohammad Rajabi, 26 were detained during the November protests when hundreds of thousands of Iranians came out across the country, calling on President Hassan Rouhani’s government to reverse the overnight increase in the price of petrol from  1,000 tomans to 3,000 tomans. The decision sent economic shockwaves across the country where the population bears the brunt of rampant corruption, widespread  economic mismanagement and increasing crippling sanctions by Washington.

“Iran’s @khamenei_ir must quash the death sentences of protesters—Amirhossein Moradi, Saeed Tamjidi & Mohammad Rajabi—immediately! Their trial was unfair & they said they were subjected to torture through beatings, electric shocks and being hung upside down,” Amnesty International tweeted.

Hours earlier, Iranian official news outlets announced the execution of two Kurdish political prisoners Saber Sheikh Abdullah and Diako Rasoulzadeh on charges of involvement in a deadly explosion in 2010. The prisoners rejected the charges and maintained their innocence.

Their execution came ten years after the head of IRGC ground force Mohammad Pakpour had claimed that the people behind the bombing in 2010 had been killed.

Iran is the world’s second most prolific executioner after China, with 8,071 executions carried out from 2000 until 2019. 

“These three men were our voice. They're silencing them NOW it's our turn to be their voice,”  one  user Kimiya tweeted.

“Iranian lives matter too,” said another user, posting hashtags in both Persian and English. 

The protests in November started by calling on the government to halt the decision to increase the price hike but ended by calling for regime change causing panic in the corridors of power in Tehran.  Tens of thousands of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Basijis, an IRGC-linked paramilitary force, launched a vicious crackdown killing somewhere between 500 to 1,500 people and incarcerated several thousand protesters in detention facilities across the country, subjecting many to torture.


NetBlocks, which monitors internet usage across the world, reported “significant” disruption to multiple networks in Iran after 5pm.

Oscar-winning Iranian film director and screenwriter Asghar Farhadi joined other artists in calling on the Iranian authorities to stop the executions.

As if the execution of two political prisoners and the imminent execution of three young men was not enough, the day ended with a judiciary announcement that a Kurdish teacher Zahra Mohammadi in the city of Sanadaj had been sentenced to ten years in prison for establishing a cultural organization deemed subversive by the authorities.