Human Rights Media Reports Execution of Five Prisoners Accused of 'Baghi' in Mashhad

Human rights sources have reported that five prisoners accused of 'Baghi' were executed at dawn on Tuesday, April 19, in Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad. The identities of these five individuals have been reported as Abdolhakim Gorgij, Abdolrahman Gorgij, Taj Mohammad Khirmali, Farhad Shakri, and Malek Ali Fadaei Nasab. According to the Hengaw website, the charge against these individuals was 'Baghi through membership in the Salafi group Hezbollah al-Furqan and the National Solidarity Front of Sunni Iranians.' In the laws of the Islamic Republic, the charge of 'Baghi' is defined as 'armed uprising against the regime' and can result in the death penalty for the accused. Additionally, according to HRANA, this case had 12 defendants who were all arrested in 2015, and in January 2020, the death sentences of three of them were carried out. Human rights sources have stated that the judicial process in this case was fundamentally flawed, and these five individuals were executed without meeting their families. Amnesty International in its latest report stated that about two-thirds of the world's executions in 2024 took place in Iran. This human rights organization has warned that in some countries, including Iran, the death penalty has become a tool for suppressing political opponents, protesters, human rights defenders, and ethnic minorities. Amnesty International states that despite some governments' attempts to use the death penalty as a political weapon, the global trend is moving towards the abolition of this punishment, and it is only a matter of time before the world is forever freed from the 'shadow of gallows.'