The killing of a 26-year-old Iranian man, Erfan Soltani, accused by the Islamic Republic of being involved protests that swept across the countryit has been postponed, according to a human rights organization in contact with his family. Soltani was expected to be executed on Wednesday.
Hengaw, a watchdog unrest in Iran and spoke to his family, he told CBS News on Wednesday that Soltani’s execution “hasn’t happened and has been postponed.” It is unclear what will happen next, and the ongoing internet blackout in Iran has hampered Hengaw’s ability to provide timely updates on the case.
Uncertainty about his fate came as President Trump threatens “tough action” against Iran in response to reports of the regime hanging prisoners during protests. Mr. Trump on Wednesday told reporters in the Oval Office that he had heard on “good authority” that “the killing in Iran is stopping” and, “there is no execution plan or to be killed or to be killed.”
The Iranian government “said he was arrested because of the protest, but we don’t know if he actually participated in the protest, because there is no information about that or evidence,” Hengaw representative Awyar Shekhi told CBS News on Tuesday.
Soltani is a clothing seller whose family lives near the capital of Iran, Tehran, according to Shekhi, who added that his family is not a political activist but opposes the current situation.
Facebook/Erfan Soltani
The ongoing internet blackout has made it difficult for journalists and rights groups to monitor the protests in Iran or the government’s brutal crackdown, which sources inside the country say may have led to the deaths of around 12,000 people, and possibly more. More than 2,600 people have been arrested amid the unrest that began on December 28, according to rights groups.
Now, there are fears that many of those arrested may be killed, despite President Trump’s warning on Tuesday to the Iranian regime that if it hangs the protesters, the US “will take strong measures.”
Soltani was arrested on January 8, Shekhi told CBS News, adding that he was “deprived of all his basic rights to communicate with his family, to have a lawyer.”
After four days, “the family received the information that their son received [a death] sentence, and without specifying what the charges were [or] during the trial.”
Soltani’s family was not told how his planned execution would be carried out, but the usual method in Iran is hanging, Hengaw told CBS News.
Soltani’s sister is a lawyer and she was trying in every way to protect her brother, “but the authorities told that [her] no case should be reviewed and we do not allow that,” said Shekhi.
An activist told CBS News that the family was informed that they would be allowed to have a final meeting with Soltani – a procedure usually reserved for the families of those killed. Hengaw said he is not sure if the meeting took place, but a source close to the family told the group that some of Soltani’s relatives were headed to the Ghezel Hesar main prison, Karaj, on Tuesday night.
“If we want to do something, we have to do it now. If we want to do something, we have to do it quickly,” said Iran’s chief justice, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, on Wednesday in a video broadcast on state television, in an interview he had with other justice officials about handling the cases of arrested protesters. “If it comes late, two months, three months later, it doesn’t have the same effect. If we want to do something, we have to do it quickly.”
Mr. Trump told CBS News’ Tony Dokoupil on Tuesday that the United States will act if the Iranian regime starts hanging protesters.
When asked to clarify what that action would be, Mr. Trump said: “Well, let’s define it in Venezuela. Let’s define it as. [ISIS leader] al-Baghdadi. He was eliminated. Let’s explain it with [Iranian military commander] Soleimani. And let’s describe it in Iran, where – they removed their nuclear threat from Iran within 15 minutes of the B-2s getting there. And that was a total waste as it turns out, which I didn’t say at first. Others then questioned itand they said, ‘You know, Trump was right.’ So we were right about everything. We don’t want to see what happened in Iran happen. And, you know, if they want to have protests, that’s one thing. When they start killing thousands of people and now you’re telling me about hanging – we’ll see how that works for them. It won’t work well.”
