Iran protests: More death sentences handed over 'riots'

Iran's judiciary on Wednesday sentenced three more protesters to death, Iranian state outlets reported.

One of the anti-government protesters was convicted of attacking police officers with his car, killing an officer, according to Iranian state media. 

Another stabbed a police officer, and the third tried to block traffic and spread "terror," Iranian judiciary news website Mizan Online reported.

All three can appeal their verdicts, the reports said.

First known death sentence to protester issued days ago

The ruling Wednesday comes three days after the Iranian regime sentenced a protester to death for allegedly setting fire to a government building, likely marking the first death sentence in the trials of those arrested for participating in nationwide protests.

Iranian authorities have issued indictments for hundreds of protesters, saying it would hold public trials for them.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of Iran Human Rights, an NGO that tracks the death penalty in Iran, told DW this week that Iranian authorities cannot "sentence someone to death for protests because the international community doesn't accept it and the political costs are very high."

"Therefore, they charge them with other things - they force them to confess that they have committed other crimes like homicide or setting fire on large buildings, and then they sentence them to death," Amiry-Moghaddam added.

The UN had warned last week that, given the continuous repression of protests, "indictments on charges carrying the death penalty and death sentences might soon be issued."

France says false Iranian report about nationals arrested 

Separately, Iran's Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi told Iranian state TV that people of other nationalities were also arrested in "riots."

Vahidi said those arrested included "elements from the French intelligence agency and they will be dealt with according to the law."

France's Foreign Ministry denied the report to the Reuters news agency on Wednesday, saying: "France categorically denies the false statements of the Iranian Minister of the Interior on our compatriots recently arrested in this country and recalls that it considers all these detentions to be arbitrary."

The ministry said it was "aware of a total of seven French nationals who are now arbitrarily detained in Iran."

Weekslong protests

The protests in Iran, sparked by the death of Jina Mahsa Amini on September 16, are arguably the greatest challenge to the Iranian clerical establishment in years.

Security forces have violently cracked down on demonstrations, killing over 300 people, including dozens of children, according to the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group.

Iranian authorities say more than 40 security forces were also killed in the nationwide unrest. 

rm/fb (Reuters, AFP, dpa)