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Iran's Supreme Court has acceded to lawyers' request to review the cases of three young men who had received capital punishment in the framework of the virulent protests last November. The decision, which entails the provisional suspension of the sentence and probably its future commutation for a lesser punishment, comes after a wave of virtual solidarity with the boys, in which a large number of Iranian Internet users participated under the hashtag '# no_ejecutéis'.

"The Supreme Court has accepted the request for a new trial," Babak Paknia, one of Amirhossein Moradi's lawyers, Mohammad Rajabi and Said Tamjidi, has announced on social media. The Mizan agency, speaker of the Iranian Judiciary, has confirmed the news, quoting a spokesman for the judiciary: "The appeal of the accused and their lawyers has been approved by the Supreme Court and the case has returned to the Prosecutor's office" .

The turn in the case has been caused by the invocation, by the lawyers, of article 474 of the Iranian Penal Code. This allows a repeat trial if, among other reasons, the verdict has been issued based on false evidence, new evidence appears favorable to the accused or if the sentence is too severe. After the acceptance of this article, the lawyers hope to achieve the application of article 477, which allows the judiciary to revoke a sentence if it considers that it contradicts religious law.

According to the Judiciary spokesman, Gholamhossein Esmaili, the boys were not detained during the protests of last November itself, but were captured by the relatives of a woman who was later assaulted with a firearm. It was then that they were seized of videos showing the burning of official buildings, which occurred during the protests over the price of gasoline. Two of the boys fled to Turkey to avoid conviction, but Ankara repatriated them.

Amnesty International has denounced that the judge ignored that the accusatory confessions were extracted from Moradi "without the presence of the lawyer", and supposedly "through torture". In an open letter, published earlier this month, the lawyers denied some of the accusations made against the convicted persons on television, requesting "time and an opportunity to present an additional argument in defense of the accused, in order to defend their rights properly".

Viral phenomenon

Since last Wednesday, when it emerged that the Supreme Court had upheld the death penalty for all three twentysomethings, the support tag for the suspension of hanging was shared more than ten million times on Twitter. Some Iranian celebrities joined the wave of criticism of the court decision, which was supported by a large number of local Internet users and, at the last minute, with the recognition of the centrist government of Hasan Rohani.

In comments to the Iranian pro-government newspaper, government spokesman Ali Rabiei asked "to respect the natural call of public opinion . " The spokesperson described the massive use of the label as "a civil action by citizens who want to be heard," and urged "the leaders" to "respond and listen to the direct call of the people." In an opposite trend, albeit in a smaller volume, numerous users defended the death penalty for the accused.

Iran is one of the countries in the world with the most executions per capita . In this case, some observers believe that the punitive measure was trying to be exemplary, in a scenario of growing unrest in the population due to the bad economic situation. The sanctions of the United States and, as the authorities have recognized, the lack of economic management have contributed to a scenario in which the local currency, the rial, is depreciating significantly.

The timid economic protests that took place this week in the southeast of the country, in towns like Behbahan, were appeased by the security forces. At the same time, Iran faces a wave of mysterious explosions and fires that are first affecting civilian and military infrastructure. According to international media and analysts, behind these events there is a push by Israel to provoke an Iranian reaction that will eventually lead to a military clash.

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