March 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Iranian judicial authorities have confirmed that 22,000 people have been pardoned after being arrested for participating in the latest wave of protests against the government, unleashed as a result of the death in custody of the young Mahsa Amini, intercepted by the so-called Moral Police. for wearing the veil wrong.
Iran’s Chief Justice Gholam Hosein Mohseni Ejei confirmed the figure after a meeting, according to the official IRNA news agency. These 22,000 people would be part of a broader package of pardons, more than 82,000.
A month ago, Tehran had already announced that the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had accepted a proposal to “pardon or reduce the sentence of a significant number” of those accused and convicted for their participation in the protests.
The demonstrations broke out in September and represented one of the biggest recent challenges to the current leadership of Iran, which went from harshly repressing the mobilizations to adopting, now, a less belligerent position, as demonstrated by these massive pardons.
The NGO Iran Human Rights estimates that at least 481 protesters died from the repression carried out by the security forces in the first weeks of the demonstrations, which also resulted in thousands of arrests. This organization estimated in February that more than a hundred detainees were facing crimes that could be punished with the death penalty.
