IRAN: FIVE MEN HANGED IN PUBLIC

January 21, 2013: Five men have been executed in public in Iran in the last days.
Two young men were hanged in Tehran on January 20. The young men have been identified as "Alireza Mafiha" and "Mohammad Ali Sarvari", 20 years old. They were arrested after mugging a man on a Tehran street on December 1, 2012. A video of the episode was posted on YouTube. It showed four young men mugging a man and one of them was holding a knife.
The young men were arrested two weeks later, charged by a Tehran court with "Moharebeh" (Waging war against God) and "Corruption on earth", and sentenced to death.
The death sentences were carried out publicly early this morning. One of the young men was quoted saying, "I know what I have done is wrong, but I didn’t think the punishment would be death."
Mehr, a state-run news agency reported that the dead bodies were kept hanging from the crane for "17 minutes".
Another young man identified as Hamed (23) was  hanged in the city of Urmia (north-western Iran) on January 19. According to the state run ISNA news agency the prisoner was convicted of murdering another young man.
On January 18, two men were hanged in Pakdasht (South of Tehran) in the morning, reported the official Iranian media. The men were identified as "Siyavash" (27) and "Mahmood" (28) and were convicted of rape, said the state run Fars news agency. According to the reports Siyavash had slit his wrist to avoid being executed. (Sources: Iran Human Rights, 19-20/01/2013)