Donald Trump has vowed ‘very strong action’ if Iran executes a pro-democracy protestor, with the world waiting to find out if he was hung overnight.
Relatives of 26-year-old shopkeeper Erfan Soltani, who was detained last week, have said he is due to be executed today.
‘If they hang them, you’re going to see some things,’ he US president told CBS News on Tuesday evening.
He added: ‘If they wanna have protests, that’s one thing. When they start killing thousands of people – now you’re telling me about hanging – we’ll see how that works out for them. It’s not gonna work out good.’
Erfan is feared to have become the first person executed over his participation in the protests, which have rocked Iran and left hundreds of innocent civilians dead.
Executions in Tehran typically happen around the dawn call to prayer, which was scheduled for around 5.45am local time on Wednesday (2.15am in the UK).
There has been no update on the protester’s condition since this time has passed.
His family have been allowed just one ten-minute meeting with Erfan, which authorities made clear was meant to be their ‘final farewell’, according to IranWire.
Relatives said he was issued a death sentence within two days after being arrested on Thursday last week.
Kurdish human rights organisation Hengaw told the BBC this morning they were afraid ‘there are many more cases like Erfan’.
Awyer Shekhi said the group does not have information about others sentenced to death due to the internet blackout.
They added: ‘The previous protests we saw crackdowns but not as severe as this time.
‘We have never witnessed this scale of mass killings in the big cities like Tehran.’
More pictures have emerged which appear to show dozens of dead bodies in body bags.
The bodies are shown lying on the ground at the Tehran Province Forensic Diagnostic and Laboratory Centre in Kahrizak, with relatives searching for their loved ones.
‘Remember the names of killers and abusers’
During a speech last night Trump urged ‘Iranian patriots’ to ‘keep protesting’.
He told them to ‘take over institutions’ and to remember the names of ‘killers and abusers’, saying they’ll ‘pay a very big price’.
The US President – who ordered a raid on Venezuela that captured the country’s leader in January – later told CBS that ‘help [was] on the way’ to Iranian activists.
The Trump Administration has also been handed a ‘hit list’ of high-value military targets inside Iran, the Daily Mail reports.
United Against Nuclear Iran, a Washington-based nonprofit group, delivered a dossier of 50 targets to the White House on Monday, including the exact coordinates of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Tharallah Headquarters.
The threatening language comes after the number of people killed in the anti-regime protests rose to more than 2,400.
The American-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said a total of 2,403 protesters have died.
On top of that number, 147 government-affiliated individuals, twelve people aged under 18 and nine non-protester civilians have also been killed.
More than 10,000 individuals have also been arrested since protests began on December 28, HRANA added.
‘He refused to back down’
Among them is Erfan, who works in the clothing industry and had recently got a new job at a private firm.
Soltani was first arrested five days ago while protesting in his town of Fardis, on the outskirts of Tehran.
A family source said: ‘Erfan had received threatening messages from security sources prior to his arrest, but he remained committed to the protests.
‘He told his family he was being watched, but he refused to back down.’
A source added: ‘They told him, “There is no file to review. We announced that anyone arrested in the protests would be executed. Erfan’s sentence is Moharebeh (Enmity against God); it is final and will be carried out.”‘
Arina Moradi, a member of the Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights who has spoken to Soltani’s family, told the Daily Mail they were ‘shocked’ at the decision.
She said: ‘Their son was never a political activist, just part of the younger generation who was protesting the current situation in Iran.’
Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani has accused the US President of inciting violence over his comments calling for Iranians to keep protesting.
‘The United States and the Israeli regime bear direct and undeniable legal responsibility for the resulting loss of innocent civilian lives, particularly among the youth,’ he wrote in a letter to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper described the regime’s response to public protests as ‘abhorrent’.
She told MPs: ‘The United Kingdom condemns in the strongest of terms the horrendous and brutal killing of Iranian protesters, and we demand the Iranian authorities respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of its citizens.’
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult.
The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
One victim was Rubina Aminian, 23, a fashion student at Shariati College in Tehran, who was killed after leaving the college and joining protest gatherings on January 8.
(Picture: IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS)
Sources close to her family told Iran Human Rights that the young Kurdish woman was shot from close range from behind in the head.
Rubina’s mother said: ‘It wasn’t just my daughter; I saw hundreds of bodies with my own eyes’.
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