Iran Human Rights Organization: Five Prisoners Executed in Shiraz

A human rights organization announced on Monday, October 2, that the judiciary of the Islamic Republic executed five citizens in Adelabad prison in Shiraz. According to the Iran Human Rights Organization, these individuals were executed on Sunday, October 1, in the central prison (Adelabad) of Shiraz, and one of them, named "Hamidreza Khodabandeh Farsimadan Qashqai," was charged with "corruption on earth and waging war against God." The report states that all five executed prisoners were men, but no further details about the identities of the other four are available. An informed source noted that "in the past two weeks, the regime has clashed several times with the Qashqai people, and one Qashqai was killed in an armed operation," informing the Iran Human Rights Organization that Hamidreza Khodabandeh was also a "Qashqai Turk" and had been arrested "a year and a half ago" during a conflict. The report also mentions that Hamidreza Khodabandeh's charge was listed as "rape," while the informed source stated, "there was no such thing, and he had no complainant," and "they promised to exile him to Zahedan," but "two days ago" his family was called for a last visit. The report indicates that the number of citizens executed in Iran on charges of "waging war against God" and "corruption on earth" in 2022 was "at least 15 people." A spokesperson for the United States previously told VOA that "the regime's behavior shows that it has learned nothing from the protests that began last September" and "it is no surprise that many young people in Iran are calling for change." Additionally, previous reports indicated that the number of executions in the Islamic Republic has increased by 75% since the killing of Mahsa Amini, with more than 650 people executed in Iran from September 16, 2022, to September of this year. Raha Bahreini, a human rights researcher at Amnesty International, previously told VOA's Persian section that the Islamic Republic has many people on death row and that global pressure to prevent this must increase.