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Source: http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010434
Iran Just Carried Out the Largest Wave of Executions Since 1984
[Wall Street Journal] Amir Taheri - On Wednesday, seven young men were hanged in Mashad, Iran's second most populous city, where a crackdown against "anti-Islam hooligans" has been underway for weeks. The Mashad hangings, broadcast live on local television, are among a series of public executions ordered by President Ahmadinejad last month as part of a campaign to terrorize an increasingly restive population. Over the past six weeks, at least 118 people have been executed, including four who were stoned to death. According to Saeed Mortazavi, the chief Islamic prosecutor, at least 150 more people, including five women, are scheduled to be hanged or stoned to death in the coming weeks. According to Gen. Ismail Muqaddam, commander of the Islamic Police, almost a million men and women have been arrested in the enforcement of the new Islamic Dress Code, passed by parliament in May 2006. As of last week, 20,363 men and women were being held on charges related to violating the Dress Code. The head of the National Prisons Service, Ali-Akbar Yassaqi, appealed for a moratorium on arrests, saying Iran's prisons could not house more than 50,000 prisoners, while the actual number of prisoners was above 150,000. He also revealed that each year on average some 600,000 Iranians spend time in one of the 130 official prisons.