“…in an apparent bid to create a climate of intimidation while sending out uncompromising signals to the West.” Hmmm. How interesting that we have Islamic groups in the United States also that are trying, in a vastly different way, to create a climate of intimidation. From the Mail & Guardian (thanks to IG):
Iran has hanged up to 30 people in the past month amid a clampdown prompted by alleged United States-backed plots to topple the regime, the British Observer newspaper has revealed.
Many executions have been carried out in public in an apparent bid to create a climate of intimidation while sending out uncompromising signals to the West. Opposition sources say at least three of the dead were political activists, contradicting government insistence that it is targeting “thugs” and dangerous criminals.
The executions have coincided with a crackdown on student activists and academics accused of trying to foment a “soft revolution’ with US support.
The most high-profile recent executions involved Majid Kavousifar (28) and his nephew, Hossein Kavousifar (24), hanged for the murder of a hard-line judge, Hassan Moghaddas, a man notorious for jailing political dissidents. They were hanged from cranes and hoisted high above one of Tehran’s busiest thoroughfares.