Iran riots: West’s lame bid to whitewash murder, glorify murderers

By Fiza Raza

On January 7, Iran carried out two more executions linked to recent foreign-backed riots in the country.

Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Mohammad Hosseini were sentenced to death over the murder of a young Basiji Ruhollah Ajamian in Karaj, the capital of central Alborz Province, on November 3, 2022.

As usual, the Western mainstream media went at it hammer and tongs in its vile attempt to portray the murderers as “peaceful protesters”, executed simply for participating in protests.

No details of the events leading up to the brutal, cold-blooded murder were reported by the media. Rather it resorted to the outrageous whitewashing of the crime and the criminals.

Deadly events of Nov. 3

On November 3, 2022, a group of violent rioters blocked the Karaj-Qazvin highway close to the Behesht Sakeeneh cemetery, which resulted in a heavy traffic jam on the highway that lasted several hours.

Footage of the crowded highway was used by foreign media outlets to push their distorted narrative that the Islamic Republic is facing the largest-ever uprising in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini, who died while in police custody in mid-September.

The barbarism displayed by rioters, as shown in viral videos, was spine-chilling. A police van was attacked and a police kiosk was set on fire, critically injuring five policemen and six civilians.

The savage mob did not even spare the innocent civilians stuck in the traffic. A cleric was attacked and stabbed several times. His documents were set on fire and his phone was stolen by the rioters.

Among the people stuck in the traffic was 26-year-old Ruhollah Ajamian, a young Basiji.

As Ajamian, wearing a Basiji uniform was helping remove barriers on the highway, he was brutally attacked by a group of rioters armed with cold weapons.

Around forty men used rocks and knives to attack him and kicked and dragged him until he died.

Court hearings

A total of 16 rioters were arrested in connection with the dastardly murder and the first court session to examine the degree of their involvement was held on November 30, 2022.

After a thorough legal trial, the court found Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Mohammad Hosseini, as the primary and secondary principal offenders, respectively, in this criminal act.

Mohammad Mahdi Karami presented a detailed description of his participation in the killing of Ajamian in court. He said that he arrived at the blocked highway around 11 a.m. local time on November 3, 2022, and joined the crowd chanting slogans and hurling rocks at the police officers.

As he was passing under a bridge, he saw a crowd with a uniformed man yelling “Basiji, Basiji.”

He moved forward and saw a Basiji lying on the ground with people hitting him with rocks and wood. Everyone would strike him once or twice and leave the scene.

Karami approached the young man under attack and struck him powerfully on the head with a rock and then three times with his fist.

As people left the scene, Karami approached Ajamian again and kicked him a few times. He appeared in no mood to let him go, even as the young Basiji breathed his last.

At this point, Hosseini arrived and stabbed Ajamian three times. Eyewitnesses confirmed Hosseini’s confession, as he was wearing a red shirt and was one of the last people present at the crime scene before Ruhollah’s tragic death.

Video footage found in the rioters’ phones also confirmed this series of events.

On December 4, 2022, after multiple hearings, the court sentenced Karami and Hosseini to death after finding them guilty of “corruption on earth” as a result of committing crimes against national security, attacking security officers and crimes against people leading to major civil disorder and insecurity.

Their sentence was carried out on January 7, 2023.

Abhorrent double standards

The execution of these criminals was met with “outrage” from the “international community.”

The European Union called the two executions “appalling” and several international and local “celebrities” called upon Iranian authorities to stop the executions.

However, a mere glance at the international community’s reaction to executions, including those of minors that regularly take place in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf dictatorships like Bahrain, reveals the true nature of these crocodile tears.

When it comes to Iran, Western governments always display blatant double standards.

While executions of opposition members in the Saudi kingdom go completely ignored in the mainstream media, the criminals sentenced to death in Iran are shamelessly presented as champions of peace and human rights.

That makes one thing amply clear. The West neither cares about the lives of those killed nor the lives of these executed murderers. Its goal is the destruction of the Islamic Republic through soft and hard war.

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