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Iran vows to execute nine more over election protests

Pro-government protesters denounce the Iranian opposition in Tehran in late December.
Pro-government protesters denounce the Iranian opposition in Tehran in late December.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Two of 11 convicted of plotting against regime executed last week
  • Anti-government demonstrations began after disputed June presidential vote
  • Demonstrations broke out again in late December
RELATED TOPICS
  • Iran
  • Iranian Politics
  • Execution

Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- Iran will soon execute nine more people in connection with the country's post-election riots, the semiofficial FARS news agency reported Tuesday.

The nine are among 11 who were sentenced to death by Tehran's Revolutionary Court last month.

Two were hanged last week.

"The two people who were executed as well as the other nine who will soon be executed had certainly been arrested during the recent riots," the news agency quoted a senior judiciary official as saying.

"Each had belonged to an anti-revolutionary group, had aspired to sow dissent and to uproot the regime."

Anti-government demonstrations began after the disputed June 12 presidential vote, which re-elected hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over main opposition candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi.

But late December marked the deadliest clashes since the initial protests broke out last summer.

At least seven people were killed and hundreds arrested, witnesses said, as they took to the streets on Ashura, a Muslim holy day which occurred on December 27.

The Iranian government has denied that its security forces killed anyone and has blamed reformists for the violence.

Police arrested 4,000 people in the post-election crackdown.

On Thursday, authorities hanged Mohammed Reza Ali Zamani, 37, and Arash Rahmanipour, 20, who had been convicted of being enemies of God and plotting to topple the Islamic regime.

The two were convicted in mass trials of opposition supporters in August, but Rahmanipour's lawyer said the young man was arrested two months before the election.