Thousands of protesters were detained as a result of the
Mahsa Amini protests, and dozens were charged with offenses such as
Moharebeh ("waging war against God") or
Mofsed-e-filarz ("corruption on Earth"), which are punishable by death in the
Islamic Republic of Iran. Iranian authorities executed four protestors,
Mohsen Shekari,
Majidreza Rahnavard,
Mohammad Mehdi Karami, and
Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, in December 2022 and January 2023 for alleged crimes linked to the Mahsa Amini protests. In May 2023, Iran executed three more protestors who were convicted of
Baghy ("rebellion against the Islamic government"): Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kazemi, and Saeed Yaghoobi. Human rights groups monitoring Iranian authorities' responses to the Mahsa Amini protests accused the Iranian ruling regime of using executions as an intimidation tactic to "instill fear" in protestors, noting that in the aftermath of the protests, Iran saw an 83% rise in executions. Iran carried out more confirmed executions in 2022 than any other country, and in the first half of 2023, Iran carried out 36% more executions than they had in the first half of 2022.
Personal life Ghobadlou was known to have
bipolar disorder.
Amnesty International reported that a psychiatric hospital had supervised Ghobadlou's condition since he was 15 years old, and the organisation also noted that people with mental disabilities are generally precluded from the death penalty under international law. Amnesty also accused Iranian officials of not carrying out "rigorous mental health assessments" despite the knowledge that Ghobadlou was mentally disabled. Human rights groups also accused officials of withholding Ghobadlou's bipolar medications from him and forbidding him from seeing his attorney during the first month of his imprisonment. == Trial and appeal ==