Execution

Iran said it executed two men Saturday convicted of allegedly killing a paramilitary volunteer during a demonstration, the latest executions aimed at halting the nationwide protests now challenging the country's theocracy. Iran's judiciary identified those executed as Mohammad Karami and Mohammad Hosseini, making it four men known to have been executed since the demonstrations began in September over the death of Mahsa Amini. The judiciary's Mizan news agency said the men had been convicted of killing Ruhollah Ajamian, a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's volunteer Basij Force, in the city of Karaj outside of Tehran on Nov. 3. The Basij have deployed in major cities, attacking and detaining protesters, who in many cases have fought back. It wasn't immediately clear which court heard the two men's cases. However, Iran's internationally criticized closed-door Revolutionary Courts have handed down two of the death sentences. Activists say at least 16 people have been sentence

The execution comes as other detainees also face possible death penalty for their involvement in the protests

Government spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun was cited as saying the decision to carry out the hangings was confirmed after legal appeals by the four were rejected.

Saudi Arabia was for years one of the world's most prolific executioners

The US Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, cleared the way for her execution after overturning a stay by the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals

Four more federal executions, including one Friday, are planned in the weeks before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration

Sixteen convicts have been executed in the country in the past three decades, including Yakub Memon, Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab.

The plea claimed that there is further new evidence which shows that the state has concealed certain facts in the case from the court

The bench said pendency of proceedings, initiated by the convicts or involving them at various fora is untenable in law as a ground for staying execution

India has carried out four executions since 2004, the last having been in 2015

The five inmates who will be executed soon at a federal facility in Indiana included Daniel Lewis Lee, a member of a white supremacist group, who murdered a family of three, including an eight-yr-old

Qadri said he killed Taseer over the politician's vocal and vehement opposition to blasphemy laws of the country