Iran has executed a 19-year-old champion wrestler, Saleh Mohammadi, alongside two other protesters in a public hanging carried out on Thursday.
Mohammadi, described as a rising wrestling talent from Qom, was reportedly accused of the capital offence of waging war against God.
Human rights groups said he was tortured into confessing and denied a fair trial before his execution.
“His execution was a blatant political murder, part of the Islamic Republic’s pattern of targeting athletes to crush dissent and terrorize society,” Nima Far, a human rights activist and Iranian combat athlete, told Fox News.
Authorities said Mohammadi and two others — Mehdi Ghasemi and Saeed Davoudi — were arrested during the January protests and accused of killing two police officers “with knives and swords”, according to Iranian state media.
Despite appeals from the United States, the three men were convicted and executed in Tehran.
Following the mass arrests linked to the protests, United States President Donald Trump had earlier claimed he received assurances from Iranian authorities that executions would not go ahead, saying hundreds of demonstrators had been spared.
“We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping — it’s stopped — it’s stopping,” Trump said at the time.
“There’s no plan for executions, or an execution, or executions — so I’ve been told that on good authority.”
Iranian authorities, however, rejected the claims and proceeded with the trials, which were reportedly accelerated after tensions escalated between Iran, the United States and Israel.
Amnesty International condemned the executions, stating that the accused were denied “adequate defence and forced to make ‘confessions.’”
The organisation added that the three men were subjected to “fast-tracked proceedings that bore no resemblance to a meaningful trial.”
Far described the executions as a repeat of past actions by Iranian authorities, referencing the 2020 execution of wrestler Navid Afkari.
He also urged international sporting bodies, including the International Olympic Committee and United World Wrestling, to take action against Iran.
“Iran must be banned from international competitions until it halts executions of protesters and athletes, releases those jailed in sham trials, and ends retaliation against competitors who speak out or defect,” Far said.
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