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Iran Executes Swedish-Iranian Dual National

    Iran Executes Swedish-Iranian Dual National
    Last updated May 08, 2023
    Image credit: Getty Images [via BBC News]

    Facts

    • On Saturday, Sweden summoned Iran's acting ambassador to protest the execution of Swedish-Iranian dual citizen Habib Chaab earlier in the day.
    • Chaab was sentenced to death on charges of being "corrupt on earth" for allegedly plotting and carrying out terrorist attacks allegedly under the protection of Israel's intelligence service Mossad and Sweden's intelligence agency Sapo since 2005.
    • The founder and leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (Ahvaz is the capital city of Iran's Khuzestan province) had been living in exile in Sweden for a decade when he was reportedly captured by Iranian agents in Turkey in 2020.
    • Chaab's execution comes as a Swedish court last year sentenced Hamid Noury, an Iranian official detained in 2019, to life in prison over his role in the 1988 mass executions of Iranian prisoners at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.
    • Iran considers the group a terrorist organization for advocating the separation of Khuzestan Province and for committing acts of terror — including an attack on a military parade in Ahvaz in 2018 that killed 25 people.
    • In 2022, Iran executed at least 582 people, up from 333 people in 2021, according to the report by Norway-based Iran Human Rights and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty.

    Spin

    Anti-Iran narrative

    Chaab is the latest victim of the Islamic Republic's killing machine, which has claimed the lives of at least 194 people so far this year — including some 42 only over the past ten days — as the regime seeks to create societal fear in the nation. It's no coincidence that Tehran's secretive death row has been focusing on restless provinces and Western nationals.

    Pro-Iran narrative

    It is disgraceful that some European nations have lambasted Tehran for upholding justice through the rightful execution of the Swedish-backed terrorist who masterminded the deadly 2018 Ahvaz attack. The West must understand that their insensitive attitude can only encourage deadly terrorism and deepen the suffering of the victims' families.

    Nerd narrative

    There's a 50% chance that Iran will cease to be an Islamic Republic by April 2038, according to the Metaculus prediction community.

    Establishment split

    CRITICAL

    PRO

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