The Iranian authorities executed the Ahwazi citizen Hani bin Assi Al-Bunasser (Al-Boushehbaz) last Tuesday, November 28, 2023, after four years of physical and psychological torture. He was accused of participating in the uprising that swept through both Ahwazi cities and Iranian provinces on November 15, 2019, after the regime announcement of 300% increase in gasoline prices. The Iranian Revolutionary Court, in a non-public and non-transparent trial, charged the Ahwazi prisoner Hani Al-Bunasser, born in 1991, with undermining Iranian national security, spreading corruption on earth, belonging to Ahwazi liberation movements, and killing two Iranian security personnel during his participation in the 2019 uprising.
The 2019 uprising, which swept across Iranian cities and provinces, witnessed horrific human massacres, as security forces, Revolutionary Guards, and Iranian intelligence assassinated at least 208 protesters during that massacre.
Mahmoud Vaezi, the chief of staff of the Iranian president, admitted on Iranian television on Wednesday, December 11, that a "Ma'shour massacre" occurred in the capital of Ahwaz, where dozens of peaceful protesters were killed. However, he claimed that "unknown gunmen" were the ones who shot the protesters after security forces and the Revolutionary Guards besieged the city for days. Meanwhile, Iranian parliament speaker's advisor, Amir Hossein Hashemi, acknowledged the killing of many protesters during the Ma'shour massacre in the south of Ahwaz, carried out by Iranian security forces and the Revolutionary Guards against protesters on November 18, 2019.
Reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch stated an increase in the death toll due to the brutal suppression of protests to at least 208 people.
Despite admissions by Iranian officials and reports from international human rights organizations about these massacres and the killing of hundreds of innocent people by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and security forces, we have not seen a single Iranian soldier brought to trial for participating in the killing of protesters, whether in the 2019 uprising or the protests that occurred before and after that year. This confirms the involvement of military and security officials in these crimes.
The Ahwazi Organization for Human Rights condemns the execution carried out by the Iranian authorities against the Ahwazi citizen Hani Al-Bunasser, calling on independent and governmental human rights organizations to take urgent action to put an end to such crimes, which constitute a blatant violation of international humanitarian and human rights laws.