Fury is erupting after Iran executed a 23-year-old protester,  Mohammad Ghobadlou, Tuesday morning, while the country’s Hamas-linked foreign minister is welcomed in New York. 

Iranian exiles are taking to social media, asking the State Department to “immediately revoke Amir-Abdollahian’s visa” since he is on “U.S. soil and enjoying his freedom in New York” while innocent protesters are executed back home in Iran.

“There are many other protesters on the death row, and their families are extremely concerned that if the regime does not see any punishment, their beloved ones might be executed soon,” an Iranian journalist, Masih Alinejad, wrote on X. “Only in the first 23 days of 2024, the Islamic Regime in Iran has carried out 51 executions, averaging more than two per day.”

Mohammad Ghobadlou was arrested during the 2022 Iranian “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests and accused of killing a policeman. The Center for Human Rights in Iran says that despite his mental disability, he was subjected to torture and coerced into confessing, resulting in his death sentence ordered by Judge Abolqasem Salavati, who is “notorious in Iran for rendering sentences based on unfounded claims by state security agencies.” 

Ghobadlou’s execution is “a stark reminder of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s broken and twisted judicial process, where defendants are sent to the gallows without due process as the state uses state-sanctioned killings to stamp out dissent,” the center said in a statement Tuesday. 

Iran’s executions have been denounced by Pope Francis, as the Sun has reported, who said “the right to life is also threatened in those places where the death penalty continues to be imposed, as is the case these days in Iran, following the recent demonstrations demanding greater respect for the dignity of women.”

Meanwhile, Iranians say that the Muslim “morning prayer is a symbol of death for us,” because the government calls for prayer hours before executing innocent political prisoners. 

“For 40 years when we hear ‘Allahu Akbar’, it means that the regime in our country, Iran, executed another innocent citizen for not practicing Islamic ideology,” Ms. Alinejad wrote on X on Monday night, ahead of the execution.“Sorry if I caused Islamophobia in the West, by sharing the feelings of millions of Iranians who are worried about the life of another young man who will face execution for the crime of not respecting Islamic ideology in Iran.”