Shiraz protests; issuance and upholding two times execution for a wrestler as well as imprisonment and flogging for two of his brothers
30-August-2020
Category: executions
Breathing in Confinement: Navid, Vahid, and Habib Afkari Sangari, three brothers who had been arrested in the City of Shiraz at the time of the nationwide protests in August 2018, were tried in both the Revolutionary Court and the Criminal Court in Shiraz. According to the verdicts, Navid Afkari has sentenced to death twice plus 6 years and 6 months in prison as well as 74 lashes. While Vahid Afkari was sentenced to 54 years and 6 months in prison in addition to 74 lashes. And Habib Afkari to 27 years and 3 months in prison and 74 lashes.
According to Breathing in Confinement, the news organ of the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran, Navid Afkari has been sentenced to death twice. While, as per his statement, from the very first moment of his arrest, he had been subjected to the most severe physical and mental torture to confess killing a security agent affiliated to ABFA company.
Concurrently with Navid’s arrest in September 2018, and to put him under more pressure and harassment, his brother Vahid also was arrested and tortured. As severe as these two brothers were tortured, Vahid committed suicide three times and went into a coma twice and survived after being resuscitated. “Vahid miraculously survived,” said his mother.
Another psychological torture imposed on these brothers to oblige them to confess was detaining their family members, including their father and their sister’s husband.
In addition, on December 13, 2018, three months after the detention of Navid and Vahid, their other brother, Habib Afkari also was arrested and underwent torture. When arrested, Habib had recently been married.
Navid and Vahid Afkari were arrested on September 17, 2018, and Habib Afkari on December 13, 2018.
As Navid Afkari stated, he had been subjected to the most severe types of mental, psychological, and physical torture for about 50 days in the detention center of the Police Information Office in Shiraz. Afterward, he was transferred to the Intelligence Office in Shiraz, known as No. 100, where he underwent even more torture. Some of the torture methods he underwent were; pulling a plastic bag over his face causing him to be nearly suffocated, hanging him from his hands so that his shoulder was broken, using obscene and sexual offensive words to demoralize him while being beaten with batons and hard objects and threats to arrest his mother and his sister while his father and his sister’s husband were in custody…
Navid (Farshid) Afkari Sangari, son of Hossein, was born in 1993. He is single and was working as a plasterer. He is also a wrestler having won several national championship medals.
Vahid Afkari Sangari, son of Hossein, was born in 1985. He is also single and was working as a plasterer.
Habib Afkari Sangari, son of Hossein, was born in 1991. He is married and was working as a welder.
And Saeed Dashtaki is 22 Years old. They all are from Shiraz.
In addition to being charged with murder and complicity in the murder, these three brothers are accused of “participating in illegal gatherings, seducing and inciting people to fight and kill each other with the intent of disrupting national security, conspiracy, and collusion to commit a crime against internal/external security, insulting the supreme leader, beating others intentionally by a baton, providing the required objects to commit a crime and disturbing public order and peace…”
Participating in the August 2018 protests in the City of Kazerun, writing slogans against the authorities of the Islamic Republic, and inviting people to take part in the protests are the other accusations of these three brothers.
Navid Afkari is also accused of vandalizing Khamenei’s profile in the wrestling hall and shoving a cleric (mullah) wearing clerical clothes during the protests.