An Iranian Jew is set to be executed on Monday for killing a man in a brawl two years ago in self-defense, an Iranian human rights group says.
Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani was defending himself after being attacked with a knife during the fatal altercation, the opposition-linked Iran International news website reported.
He was convicted of the “intentional murder” of Amir Shokri, and sentenced under the penal code for “retributive justice.”
Ghahremani, 20, from the southwestern Iranian city of Kermanshah, was supposed to be executed on Saturday but his family was informed that it will now take place on Monday, according to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR).
His only hope of being spared under Iran’s Islamic code is for the family of the dead man to forgive him, something it has so far refused to do.
Efforts by members of the Iranian-Jewish community in the United States to persuade the victim’s family to accept compensation have so far been unsuccessful. Prayer services have been held on Ghahremani’s behalf at the request of the family.
Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, there were some 100,000 Jews in Iran; by 2016, according to an Iranian census, that number had fallen to below 10,000.
Iran, which is listed by the State Department as the biggest sponsor of international terrorism, has openly sworn to destroy Israel and supports terrorist groups including Hezbollah and Hamas with funding and weapons.
The Islamic Republic executed 853 people in 2023, the most since 2015, the London-based Amnesty International said last month.
The Iranian authorities have “persisted with their state-sanctioned killing spree which has turned prisons into killing fields,” Amnesty said.
