Iran's rulers revel in rough justice

THOUSANDS of Iranians, including children, watched in fascination and horror yesterday as two men convicted of murdering a hardline judge were hanged in a Tehran street in defiance of Western criticism of Iran's human rights record.

Dozens of people have been executed in recent weeks for rape, drug trafficking, murder and other offences but public executions are relatively rare and these were the first in the capital for five years.

Majid Kavousifar and his nephew Hossein Kavousifar were jostled in handcuffs to two pick-ups where nooses dangling from five metre-long cranes were tied around their necks.

Before them was a huge portrait of Hassan Moghaddas, the judge that they shot dead in his car at that precise spot in front of his central Tehran office two years ago.

When the hoods of his killers were removed, the older man smiled and puffed out his chest. He chatted to his executioner whose face was masked by a balaclava. The nephew was silent, trembling and in tears.

The hangmen booted away the wooden stools on which the two stood, the ropes snapped tight, and a shout of "God is Greatest" erupted from the crowd. The older man appeared to die instantly. His nephew writhed for a few seconds before his body went slack.

The tearful mother of one of the killers cried: "God, please give me back my son." From a balcony through loudspeakers, an official boomed: "Death to hypocrites! Death to the terrorists! Death to America!"

The murdered judge had worked in a "guidance court" which handles sensitive cases of "moral corruption".

He had jailed seven dissidents in 2000 after they attended a conference in Berlin on Iranian reform.

But officials claimed his killers were not political activists, saying the older convict had admitted to having a personal vendetta against the judge whom he considered "corrupt".

Iran has the highest number of executions in the world after China and the hangings brought to at least 151 the number executed in the Islamic republic so far this year, compared to a total of 177 last year, itself twice the number executed in 2005.

Iran says the hangings are part of a major drive to tackle violent crime and drug trafficking. But the Draconian campaign coincides with the toughest crackdown in years against political and social dissent that has targeted students, academics and journalists as well as women and labour activists.

There has also been a sweeping campaign against young people flouting the dress code, with women upbraided for wearing figure-hugging clothes and men chided for sporting Western-style haircuts.

The regime, showing signs of apparent paranoia, claims that dissenters are trying to topple the Islamic system in a "soft revolution" backed by the United States, which has slotted $75 million for "pro-democracy" activities in Iran. Some Iranians, critical of both Tehran and Washington, argue the US has simply given their government a pretext to flex its muscles.

Seven rapists and kidnappers were publicly executed in the holy city of Mashhad on Wednesday. Two bandits were hanged in a jail on the same day. Last month, 12 convicts arrested in the same crackdown against "thugs" were hanged on the same day in Tehran's notorious Evin prison.

July also saw the rare public hanging of a woman who was convicted of strangling to death her husband. In a separate incident, a man was stoned to death for adultery, the first imposition of such a penalty in five years.

Tehran this week also confirmed it had sentenced two Kurdish dissident journalists to death for mounting an "armed struggle against the system". Western human rights groups maintain Iran often imprisons pro-reform writers, journalists and intellectuals without due process.

Commenting on the death sentences against the two Kurds, Kate Allen, the UK director of Amnesty International, said: "Journalism and cultural and environmental activism are lawful activities that should be protected by the Iranian authorities, not persecuted and punished."

She added: "After a shameful spate of executions in Iran this year, it's now vital that Iran takes a step back from judicial killing and imposes a halt on all further executions."

FEAR IS KEY TO REGIME

IRAN'S critics believe the overall intention of the Iranian regime in using such harsh punishment is to instil fear in the population at a time when Tehran is under growing international pressure over its nuclear programme. The repression is seen as a message from the hardliners that they are firmly in charge, despite American efforts to isolate Iran and inflict damage on its economy.

"Iran's current crop of hardliners are religious ideologues with a Machiavellian world view. They would rather rule over a population that fears them than a population that likes them," Karim Sadjadpour, a Washington-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, told The Scotsman.

Murder, rape, adultery, armed robbery, apostasy and drug-smuggling are all punishable by death under Iran's Islamic Sharia law, imposed after the 1979 revolution.