Iran executes Jewish man despite family pleas and attempts to pay restitution

ISTANBUL (RNS) — Arvin Ghahremani, a 20-year-old Iranian Jew accused of murder, was hanged by the country’s Islamic regime on Monday (Nov. 4) after a monthslong trial that was closely watched by the Persian Jewish diaspora as well as human rights groups. 

Two years ago Ghahremani was involved in an altercation with another man, a Muslim named Amir Shokri, in the western Iranian city of Kermanshah, where both lived, resulting in Shokri’s death. 

According to Ghahremani’s family and the Iranian Jewish community, Shokri, who had owed Ghahremani money,  attacked Ghahremani with a knife during a conversation about the debt. Government prosecutors have cast doubt on this account, saying, according to Iranian media, that no one else was present at the scene. 

Ghahremani was quickly sentenced to “qisas,” or retributive justice, under Iran’s Sharia-influenced legal system and sentenced to death unless the victim’s family would accept a blood payment, known as “diya,” from Ghahremani.

But Iranian law distinguishes in such matters between Muslims and non-Muslims, frequently discriminating against the latter group. Were the faiths of the two men swapped, observers have pointed out, the Muslim perpetrator would not be liable for qisas, leaving the punishment to the discretion of the local judiciary. 

“We note with concern that Iranian authorities often subject Jewish citizens to different standards when it comes to determining judgments in cases of this nature,” Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, said on social media site X in May, when Ghahremani’s execution was temporarily postponed. 

Iran Human Rights, a watchdog organization based in Norway, also noted that Ghahremani was afforded only a desultory defense. “At trial, Arvin’s court-appointed lawyer did not effectively defend his client for unknown reasons and his right to self-defense was not properly presented in the case. His appeal was also rejected twice without serious consideration and many important events leading to the stabbing were ignored,” the group has said in a statement.

Ghahremani’s case was followed closely by the wider Jewish world, but particularly by Iranian Jews living outside the country. Many gathered together in synagogues or virtually in WhatsApp groups to advocate, pray and raise funds for Ghahremani’s freedom. 

Rabbi Eliyahu Netanili, the leader of Los Angeles’ Hayyeh Torah Synagogue, called for 1,000 people to recite Psalm 13, a prayer expressing faithfulness, 13 times on Ghahremani’s behalf. 

In a tear-filled recording that spread through Persian-Jewish WhatsApp groups, Ghahremani’s mother, Sonia Saadati, said, “I am asking everyone to help pray.”

More than a million dollars were raised on Ghahremani’s behalf in hopes that a sufficient diya could be raised to satisfy Shokri’s family. Jewish leaders in Iran also offered to fund the construction of a new mosque in Shokri’s honor. 

But Shokri’s family repeatedly rebuffed the increasingly high offers. (Iran Human Rights charged that they had seemed more open to it when they believed Ghahremani was a Shia Muslim.)

Ghahremani was executed on Monday at an undisclosed location, without prior notice given to his family or legal team, according to Voice of America. 

“His life ended under a system that allowed discrimination and cruelty to guide his fate,” Rabbi Isaac Choua, the World Jewish Congress’ liaison to Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa, posted on X. “This selective justice, as human rights experts note, highlights the discrimination minorities face in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

More than 1,100 people were sentenced to qisas in Iran in 2023, according to Iran Human Rights, with 282 of the cases resulting in executions, either because the convicted parties couldn’t afford diya payments or their diya was refused. 

“Like many of those sentenced to qisas, Arvin’s case and the judicial process had significant flaws. However, in addition to this, Arvin was a Jew, and the institutionalized antisemitism in the Islamic Republic undoubtedly played a crucial role in the implementation of his sentence,” IHR’s director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said. 

Ghahremani was the first member of Iran’s Jewish community to be executed by the Iranian state since the death penalty was carried out against 77-year-old Feysollah Mechubad in 1994 on accusations of associating with Zionism. 

Though Iran was home to some 100,000 Jews before the 1979 revolution, the community is thought to be no more than 10,000 today, with the largest concentration in Tehran. Despite Iran’s belligerence toward Israel, Iranian Jews are able to conduct a robust religious life in the Islamic state, with a plethora of active synagogues, Jewish schools, kosher establishments and other centers for Jewish life. 

But cases like Ghahremani are a reminder of the limits of religious freedom. “The unfortunate reality for Iranian Jewry is that, on the surface, all appears well. However, the diaspora community — based in Israel, the U.S., Europe and beyond — tells a different story. Even in conversations with family still in Iran, certain topics remain off-limits,” Choua told RNS. 

“The communities in the know understood that a moment like this was inevitable,” added Choua. “No one was truly surprised. Yet they mobilized in prayer and worked tirelessly to try to save him.”