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Iran’s theocratic rulers proved once again that brutality is their preferred language when dissent grows too loud, executing three young men — including 19-year-old wrestling champion Saleh Mohammadi — in Qom in mid-March. The hangings, carried out in the dead of night, are a chilling reminder that the mullahs respond to protest with terror, not reform.
Tehran’s judiciary claims the condemned were guilty of moharebeh, or “waging war against God,” an intentionally vague charge the regime uses to criminalize political opposition and justify public executions. Human-rights groups allege these verdicts were handed down after perfunctory, rigged trials that relied on confessions extracted under torture — a pattern the world has seen before in Iran’s courts.
Washington and free-world allies publicly urged Iran to halt the sentence against Mohammadi and others, but words alone will not save lives against an enemy that counts on global passivity. The U.S. State Department and other Western governments raised alarms as the regime moved to make examples of young protesters and athletes.
Those executions are not isolated incidents but part of a broader, predictable campaign to crush the nationwide protests that began earlier this year; rights organizations warn that scores more could face the same fate unless pressure intensifies. This is not mere domestic law enforcement — it is state terror directed at a population demanding basic freedoms.
Brave voices in the diaspora, like British-Iranian activists who have risked everything to expose Tehran’s atrocities, are sounding the alarm and demanding justice for victims like Mohammadi. Their testimony should be a clarion call to free nations and conservative leaders who still believe in liberty: silence equals complicity.
America’s response must match its rhetoric. Congress and the White House should expand targeted sanctions, freeze regime assets tied to the security apparatus, expedite asylum for dissidents, and bolster independent broadcasting into Iran so the Iranian people can hear the truth without Tehran’s censorship.
Hardworking Americans know freedom is not free, and the sacrifice of young Iranians should remind us why we stand for liberty abroad. The choice is crystal clear: stand with the oppressed or let a brutal regime continue to slaughter hope in public squares.
