Iranian Teen Protesters Face Death Penalty

Iran has sentenced two teenagers to be hanged for taking part in anti-government protests that have rocked the country since September, a rights group said late on Monday.

Mehdi Mohammadifard, 18, has been sentenced to death after being convicted of setting a traffic police kiosk alight in the town of Nowshahr in the central-northern Mazandaran province, the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights non-governmental organisation said.

A death sentence was also passed against Mohammad Boroghani, 19, the group said. He had been arrested in December and held by the Supreme Court on charges of “enmity against God”, according to the judiciary's Mizan Online news website.

Boroghani had faced charges of wounding a member of security personnel with a knife with the intent of killing him, “sowing terror among citizens” and setting a governor's office on fire in Pakdasht, a city 43km south-east of Tehran.

The authorities have already executed two men, both aged 23, over protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd who died the custody of the morality police in September. She had been detained in Tehran for wearing her hijab “improperly”.

Human rights activists fear dozens more demonstrators face being executed, as authorities use capital punishment as an intimidation tactic in a bid to quell the protests.

Also in December, the Human Rights Activists' News Agency, established by Iranian human rights activists, reported that more than 18,200 people had been arrested in connection with the protests.