IWAC – Follow-Up Report on Hossein Mohammadi; stage actor and director, and among five defendants initially sentenced to execution over the case of a plainclothes basiji, state mercenary, who got killed in the course of protests, at the 40th day anniversary since the state-murder of Hadis Najafi (a young woman brutally gunned down by state forces in Iran’s recent mass protests); he was put to trial again on Mar. 6, 2023. His trial was held along with 11 defendants over the murder of the basiji mentioned earlier, Rouhollah Ajamiyan, chaired by Judge Asef’al’Hosseini. As reported by the legal and civil counselling news agency, Dadban, in this court hearing so far, only the case of Hossein Mohammadi and three adolescents under 18 were proceeded and the court has not yet announced its verdict. It is expected that the court hearings of the rest of the defendants in this case be held respectively.
In reports on social media, it was stated that Hossein Mohammadi’s name was unexpectedly brought into the list of the defendants of the case in question by the third hearing session of it was held at the 1st division of Alborz Province. There was no mentioning of his name as a defendant in this case previous to that court hearing, and thus he was brought into the list of the defendants of the case with no prior explanation or reasoning.
The number of individuals introduced by Islamic Republic’s judiciary authorities as defendants was initially 11, and then increased to 15, and on the third day of the court, when Hossein Mohammadi was added, it increased to 16. The persecutor’s deputy at court charged Hossein Mohammadi with “corruption on earth through committing crimes against national security” and “collusion and conspiracy with the intention of committing crimes against national security.” On Jan. 3, 2023, Amir Hashemi, the PR-manager of the Supreme Court announced on his Tweeter account that the execution sentence of Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Mohammad Hosseini, among the convicted defendants of the same case (which was later brutally carried out against all legal proceedings), was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court. While announcing this news, Hashemi wrote that the execution sentence issued for Hamid Ghareh’Hassanlou, Hossein Mohammadi, and Reza Ariya has been reversed due to “investigative insufficiencies.”
Also, before the execution sentence being issued for Hossein Mohammadi, a large number of stage and theater artists were among the arrestees of Iran’s mass protests. In the very beginning weeks of the protests, a list consisting of over 20 arrestees as such was published and later, gradually, unofficial reports on social media informed about the extension of the detention of these individuals, in addition to even more stage artists being arrested. Mohammad Mehdi Asgharpour, the chairman of the board of House of Cinema (a state-sponsored organization), stated in an interview with a new agency, ISNA, on Dec. 6, 2022, where he mentioned that the total number of the arrestees from various areas of art other than that of cinema had risen above a hundred. Yet, amidst such news, the announcement of the issuance of the execution sentence for Hossein Mohammadi, the young stage actor, put the stage community of Iran in a state of shock. This is while Mohammad Hosseini is not an unrecognized name among the younger theatrical community members and even a familiar name to some of the prominent figures of stage art.
Based on reports by closely affiliated sources, this actor was arrested on Nov. 5, 2022, at his own place, and via a contact he made with his family at the night of his arrest, he spoke about “clearing misunderstandings” and his prospective release in a couple of days. Thus, neither he nor any other family member, friend, or colleague expected his name to be brought up in the case of the mercenary agent’s murder.
However, as far his artistic career is concerned, Hossein Mohammadi is born in Feb. 12, 1997, in Karaj. As a young artist, in 2020, he won the prize of the best male actor in Creative Academic Festival for starring in a play called “Chehel Lom,” which was taken on the stage on Oct.-Nov. 2019, in one of the theatre halls of the capital. In addition, on the 49th closing ceremony of the state art festival, Fajr, he was present for starring in a play directed by Maryam Khalili, called “from 7:30 to 9:00”, and was praised with the highest rank in the Unique Performers’ category. It must be added that Katalin Gennburg had accepted his political guardianship to prevent his execution sentence.
