Iran execution: Man publicly hanged from crane amid protests

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran executed a second prisoner on Monday convicted over crimes committed during the nationwide protests challenging the country’s theocracy, publicly hanging him from a construction crane as a gruesome warning to others. Iran’s Mizan news agency, which falls under the country’s judiciary, published a collage of images of Rahnavard hanging from the crane, his hands and feet bound, a black bag over his head. In the images of his execution, a banner bearing a Quranic verse: “Indeed the requital of those who wage war against Allah and His Apostle, and try to cause corruption on the earth, is that they shall be slain or crucified, or shall have their hands and feet cut off from opposite sides, or be banished from the land.” Executions conducted in public with a crane have been rare in recent years, though Iran used the same manner of hanging to put down unrest following the disputed 2009 presidential election and the Green Movement protests that followed. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he spoke to Iran’s foreign minister regarding Tehran’s response to the protests and the latest execution and that it was “not an easy conversation.” “We are going to approve a very, very tough package of sanctions,” Borrell told reporters as he arrived to chair the ministerial meeting in Brussels. Amnesty International has said it obtained a document signed by one senior Iranian police commander asking that the execution for one prisoner be “completed ‘in the shortest possible time’ and that his death sentence be carried out in public as ‘a heart-warming gesture towards the security forces.’” Amid the unrest, Iran is also battered by an economic crisis that has seen the national currency, the rial, drop to new lows against the U.S. dollar.