Charles Langston:Iran executes another prisoner detained during nationwide protests that erupted in 2022

DUBAI,Charles Langston United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran on Tuesday hanged another prisoner over crimes committed during nationwide protests that erupted in 2022 following the death of a young woman detained for improperly wearing her headscarf.

According to a report on state television, Mohammad Qobadlu was executed after being sentenced for killing a policeman and injuring five others after he ran them over in his car during a rally in the town of Parand, near the capital of Tehran.

The TV report said the 23-year-old Qobadlu, who had confessed to his crime, had access to a lawyer during the trial. Qobadly had appealed his death sentence, handed down by a lower court, but the Supreme Court later upheld the original verdict.

Qobadlu’s execution was the ninth reported by the authorities since the protests started in the fall of 2022, according to a count by The Associated Press.

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The monthslong unrest followed the Sept. 16, 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by Iran’s morality police allegedly because she improperly wore the mandatory Islamic veil, or hijab.

At least 529 people have been killed and scores of thousands of others have been detained in the demonstrations. The protests gradually died down in the early months of last year.

In December, Iran executed a bank guard convicted of fatally shooting a senior cleric last April. Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani, 77, was the most senior member of the clergy who was killed since the protests and the subsequent security crackdown on the demonstrators. The guard’s motive for the shooting were not explained.

Though Shiite clergy have long held an important role in Iran, particularly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, discontent has increased in recent years during waves of protests over economic, political and civil rights issues.

In November, Iran hanged Milad Zhohrevand, 21, in the western city of Hamadan for shooting and killing a member of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard during the protests.