Teen Faces Execution for ‘Protecting Women from Attack’

A petition has been launched to save an Iranian teenager being executed and to raise awareness to the atrocities committed in Iran after Makan Davari was sentenced following a trial on Christmas Eve 2022. He is currently detained in Iran in prison.

The change.org petition has already garnered 546,630 signatures and hopes to gather enough supporters to “bring the world’s attention to this atrocity and potentially stop Makan’s unjust and unlawful detention and looming execution”.

Petition creator Nazanin wrote the teen, who is from Langarud, a small city in the northern province of Gilan, Iran, was arrested during the first week of the Iranian protests while returning home from gym.

The 19-year-old was arrested whilst trying to protect a group of women who were being assaulted by the regime, the creator claimed.

Davari is said to be the only son of a single mother suffering from leukaemia.

Iran has been gripped by protests demanding more freedoms and women’s rights since September.

The uprising was triggered by the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of morality police.

She was arrested for an alleged breach of the country’s strict dress code.

Human rights groups say more than 500 demonstrators have been killed, including 70 minors, and around 20,000 have been arrested.

It is reproted that protests around the country have noticeably slowed since the first of the hangings began.

Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights estimated that at least 100 people in detention are facing death sentences.

It reported that all defendants have been “deprived of the right to access their own lawyer, due process and fair trials”.

Four have already been executed for crimes connected to the protests and in January two men were hanged for killing a member of Iran’s security forces.

However, on the eve of the anniversary of the Islamic revolution in 1979 Iran’s supreme leader pardoned “tens of thousands” of prisoners.