Germany and the European Union on Tuesday strongly condemned Iran’s execution of a 69-year-old German-Iranian dissident after years behind bars and warned they had been contemplating retaliatory measures.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz known as Jamshid Sharmahd’s execution on Monday a “scandal” and International Minister Annalena Baerbock warned Iran’s “inhumane regime” of “critical penalties”.
Berlin summoned Iran’s cost d’affaires to “convey its sturdy protest towards the actions of the Iranian regime”. The German ambassador in Tehran additionally protested to the Iranian international ministry and was then recalled to Berlin for consultations.
Berlin “reserved the precise to take additional measures”, the international ministry mentioned.
The EU’s prime diplomat Josep Borrell mentioned the EU condemned Sharmahd’s “killing within the strongest doable phrases” and that the bloc was additionally “contemplating measures in response”.
Sharmahd, a German citizen of Iranian descent and a US resident, was a educated software program engineer who had labored and written for an Iranian opposition group’s web site based mostly overseas that strongly criticised the Islamic republic management.
He was seized by Iranian authorities in 2020 whereas travelling via the United Arab Emirates, in keeping with his household.
Iran accused him of getting performed a task in a lethal 2008 mosque bombing. He was sentenced to dying in February 2023 for the capital offence of “corruption on Earth”.
The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan web site mentioned on Monday that “the dying sentence of Jamshid Sharmahd… was carried out this morning”.
His household have all the time vehemently protested his innocence.
Sharmahd’s daughter Gazelle mentioned on X she was ready for the German and US governments to supply “concrete proof” that her father had been killed.
If that’s the case, she mentioned, his physique must be introduced residence “instantly” and the Iranian authorities ought to face “extreme punishment”.
– ‘Present trial’ –
Rights group Amnesty Worldwide mentioned Sharmahd’s execution “is the merciless finish of a course of that may solely be described as a present trial”.
“These actions present as soon as once more that the systematic abuse of basic human rights is anchored within the workings of the Iranian judicial system,” the group’s Germany chapter mentioned in an announcement.
It known as on Berlin to subject “arrest warrants towards all Iranian officers who participated within the crime towards Jamshid Sharmahd”.
Baerbock mentioned Monday that the case “underlines the truth that nobody is secure below the brand new authorities both,” referring to President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was inaugurated in July.
Iran carries out the second highest variety of executions worldwide per 12 months after China, in keeping with Amnesty Worldwide.
At the least 627 folks have been executed this 12 months by Iran, in keeping with Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights. Rights teams accuse the authorities of utilizing capital punishment as a software to instill concern all through society.
A number of different Europeans are held in Iran, together with at the least three French residents.
The director of Iran Human Rights, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, known as Sharmahd’s execution “a case of extrajudicial killing of a hostage aimed toward overlaying up the current failures of the hostage-takers of the Islamic Republic”.
