A representative of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and officials of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are advocating for the execution of 20-year-old Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani, a Jewish citizen from the city of Kermanshah.
Ghahremani was sentenced to death for the killing of a Muslim man in a fight two years ago, according to a Kurdish human rights group on Thursday.
The execution, initially planned for last Monday, was postponed by a month amid pressure from politicians and members of the business community in the United States. Appeals have been made to countries including Russia and Germany to intervene on Ghahremani's behalf.
Ghahremani claims he acted in self-defense when 40-year-old Amir Shukri tried to kill him. He has been jailed in Kermanshah's Dizel Abad Prison since the incident.
According to Hengaw, an independent Kurdish rights group, the victim's family was pressured by Khamenei's emissary and members of the IRGC's intelligence to refuse compensation for Shukri's death. Such an agreement, common in Iran, would prevent the execution, but this was denied because Ghahremani is Jewish.
Iran is known as the world's leading country in the number of executions, followed by Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, where there is no accurate count of executions. European human rights organizations claim that Iran executed at least 223 people this year, including a large number of women. Just last month, 50 people were executed, including four women. In April, the number was much higher, with 109 men, six women, and two underage boys executed.
In 2023, 834 men, women, boys, and girls were executed in Iran, marking a 43% increase compared to 2022 and the highest number in the past nine years. In 2015, the number of death sentences in Iran stood at 972.
Some women face execution by hanging for transgressions related to arranged marriages. In these cases, the woman refuses to marry the groom, usually an older man, who has already transferred a large sum of money to her parents. Most executions in Iran target the lower socio-economic classes, particularly for drug trafficking offenses.