Fear, loathing and retribution in Iran:
An Iranian man arrested in his country’s postelection unrest has been sentenced to death, according to reports on a Web site aligned with the reformist movement.
If so, it is the first death sentence to be issued in cases involving the hundreds charged in the vast protests that followed the declaration of a landslide victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 elections.
At least 30 people were killed and thousands arrested in the government crackdown on the millions of Iranians who took to the streets charging fraud and vote rigging. The government denounced the protests as being part of a plan to overthrow it and is running mass trials involving hundreds of defendants.
The man sentenced, Muhammad-Reza Ali-Zamani, is a member of a group called Kingdom Assembly of Iran, which is considered a terrorist organization in Iran for seeking to replace the Islamic theocracy by restoring the shah to the throne, according to Iranian Web sites.
The country’s regime is a travesty.