Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has accepted a proposal by the country’s Judiciary to «pardon or reduce the sentence of a significant number» of defendants and convicts for their involvement in protests against the death in custody last year of young Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini for allegedly wearing the Islamic headscarf incorrectly, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reports.
The amnesty has been granted on the occasion of the upcoming commemoration of the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, February 11, 1979, and is in accordance with Article 110 of the Constitution which «grants the Leader the right to pardon or reduce the sentences of convicted persons on the recommendation of the head of the Judiciary».
According to the terms stipulated by the Judiciary, the amnesty would be granted to those accused and convicted who «have not committed espionage, intentional homicide or injury, or destruction of public property».
Khamenei thus accepted the proposal made by the head of the Judiciary, Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejei, who explained to him in a letter that «a significant number of these prisoners have repented of their crimes and have asked for forgiveness after the disclosure of the plots hatched by foreign enemies and anti-revolutionary and anti-popular currents».
The Iranian government, while acknowledging occasional excesses in the repression of the protests, blames the demonstrations on the intervention of «troublemakers», many of them in the pay of «foreign powers».
The protests have so far resulted in between 481 and 522 deaths, including 68 members of the country’s security forces, according to NGOs specializing in monitoring the crisis.
According to the NGO Hrana, a total of approximately 19,600 people have been arrested since the outbreak of the protests, of whom 713 have already been sentenced by an Iranian court. At least four people have been executed and 109 are threatened with the possibility of ending up on death row.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
