Iran hangs protester Alireza Sepahi hours after prison phone wedding

Right · 2Alireza Sepahi, 25, was hanged at dawn on Monday 5 October at Isfahan Central Prison, hours after marrying his imprisoned fiancée, Mahshad Keshani, 22, over a prison phone line. 1 2 Right · 2He was executed alongside co-defendant Alireza Raisi after a death sentence linked to the 8 January protests at Alikhani Square in Isfahan, according to the rights group Iran Human Rights. 1 2 Right · 2Lawyer Amirsalar Davoudi, who read the vows for the couple's fathers to bless, told The Times of London the wedding was Keshani's idea; he said she answered his warning that it could not be undone with "Mr Davoudi, I love Alireza." 1 2

Right · 2Keshani's family provided a dowry of a Quran, saffron rock candy and a single red rose. Davoudi said Sepahi wept on hearing the plan and that even prison officers cried. 1 2 Right · 2The accounts differ on the wedding date: Fox News says it was Sunday, while Breitbart says 4 October. Both say the hanging followed within hours. 1 2 Right · 2The marriage carried no power to stop the execution. Roya Boroumand of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center said lawyers hoped it might delay the hanging, but authorities claimed the fiancée was not related to the prisoner and blocked an in-person ceremony, so the marriage was "in absentia". 1 2

Right · 2Sepahi had earlier survived a scheduled hanging in July after a heart attack on the way to the gallows, and the sentence was rescheduled. Breitbart gives the original date as 28 July and says he was placed in pre-execution solitary confinement on 12 September after a revolutionary court rejected his last appeal. 1 2 Right · 2Fox News says he was one of seven defendants executed in the Alikhani Square case, in which 12 men were accused over the deaths of four security personnel. Breitbart, citing Iran Human Rights, says 62 people were arrested over the protest, 12 were sentenced to death and five had been executed before Sepahi, and that Iran says four policemen were killed. 1 2 Right · 1Iran Human Rights says it has documented torture used to extract self-incriminating confessions from defendants in the case. Its director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said weekly executions of protesters continue and hundreds more face death sentences or capital charges. 2

Right · 2Both outlets report that authorities did not let Sepahi's family bury him in his hometown; Breitbart says his body was sent to Kashan, about 125 miles away. Keshani remains in custody, and Fox News says she faces additional security charges, according to human rights groups. 1 2 Right · 2Breitbart says Iran has executed 34 protesters over the recent demonstrations, and cites a September report by Human Rights Watch and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center calling the proceedings unlawful and unfair. Fox News adds that NCRI's Maryam Rajavi urged UN Secretary-General António Guterres to act ahead of World Day Against the Death Penalty on 10 October. The coverage includes no comment from Iranian authorities on this case. 2 1