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Irans judiciary has sentenced three more anti-government protesters to death on charges of waging war on God, its Mizan news agency reported on Monday, defying growing international criticism over its fierce crackdown on demonstrators.

Iran hanged two other people on Saturday in its attempts to stamp out demonstrations, which have slowed considerably since it began executions carried out just weeks after arrests.

Mizan said Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kazemi and Saeid Yaghoubi, who had been convicted of allegedly killing members of the volunteer Basij militia during anti-government protests in the central city of Isfahan, could appeal against their verdicts.

The Basij forces, affiliated with the elite Revolutionary Guards, have been at the forefront of the state clampdown on the unrest sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Irans morality police on Sept. 16.

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Pope Francis on Monday condemned Iran for using the death penalty on demonstrators demanding greater respect for women.

The right to life is also threatened in those places where the death penalty continues to be imposed, as is the case in these days in Iran, following the recent demonstrations demanding greater respect for the dignity of women, Francis said.

1:55Iran protests: Shop owners speak as protesters call for 3-day nationwide strike

One of the boldest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution, the protests have drawn support from Iranians in all walks of life and challenged the Islamic Republics legitimacy by calling for the downfall of its rulers.

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Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday signalled the state has no intention of softening its position, saying in a televised speech that those who set fire to public places have committed treason with no doubt. Under Irans Islamic law, treason is punishable by death.

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Rights activists see the executions, arrests and harsh sentences of protesters by the clerical establishment as an attempt to intimidate demonstrators and strike enough fear in the population to end the unrest.

Despite the establishment doubling down on repression, small-scale protests persist in Tehran, Isfahan and several other cities.

2:26Iranian protestors facing death penalty

At least four people have been hanged since the demonstrations started, according to the judiciary, including two protesters on Saturday for allegedly killing a member of the Basij.

Amnesty International said last month that Iranian authorities are seeking the death penalty for at least 26 others in what it called sham trials designed to intimidate protesters.

Rights activists on social media said two other protesters, the 22-year-old Mohammad Ghobadlou and 18-year-old Mohammad Boroughani, had been transferred to solitary confinement ahead of their execution in the Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj city.

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Videos on social media, unverifiable by Reuters, showed people gathered late on Sunday in front of the prison chanting slogans against Khamenei.

The European Union, the United States and other Western countries have condemned Iran for using the death penalty against demonstrators.

The Islamic Republic, which has blamed the unrest on its foreign foes including the United States, sees its crackdown of protests as preserving national sovereignty.

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Iran protests: Tehran sentences 3 more protesters to death amid global ...

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday condemned Iran for using the death penalty against demonstrators, and his spokesperson said Berlin wanted to crank up pressure on the Iranian authorities with new international measures.

Iran hanged two men on Saturday for allegedly killing a member of the security forces during nationwide protests that followed the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16, drawing condemnation from the European Union, the United States and other Western nations.

"With the executions, the Iranian regime is employing the death penalty as a means of repression," Scholz wrote on Twitter. "That is horrifying."

He said Iran should refrain from further executions after the killings of 22-year-old Mohammad Mehdi Karami and 39-year-old Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, whose deaths bring the number of executions linked to the protests to four.

"Together with our international partners, we will increase the pressure further on the Iranian regime," the government spokesperson told a regular news conference, adding that Iran needed to see that there would be a price to pay for continuing.

A German foreign ministry spokesperson said the goal was to agree a fourth package of sanctions with other European Union member states in response to the crackdown.

(Reporting by Rachel More, Matthias Williams and Thomas Escritt; Editing by Miranda Murray, William Maclean)

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Germany says it wants to increase pressure on Iran after latest executions

Iran said it executed two men Saturday convicted of allegedly killing a paramilitary volunteer during a demonstration, the latest executions aimed at halting the nationwide protests now challenging the country's theocracy.

Irans judiciary identified those executed as Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Mohammad Hosseini, making it four men known to have been executed since the demonstrations began in September over the death of Mahsa Amini. All have faced internationally criticized, rapid, closed-door trials.

The judiciary's Mizan news agency said the men had been convicted of killing Ruhollah Ajamian, a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's volunteer Basij force, in the city of Karaj outside of Tehran on Nov. 3. The Basij have deployed in major cities, attacking and detaining protesters, who in many cases have fought back.

Women protest the death of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini who was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Middle East Images, File)

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Twitter that Karami and Hosseini were "more than just two names."

"(They were) hanged by the regime in Iran because they didnt want to submit to its brutal and inhuman actions. Two further terrible fates that encourage us to increase the pressure on Tehran through the EU," she wrote.

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Heavily edited footage aired on state television showed Karami speaking before a Revolutionary Court about the attack, which also showed a reenactment of the attack, according to prosecutors' claims. Iran's Revolutionary Courts handed down the two other death sentences already carried out.

The tribunals dont allow those on trial to pick their own lawyers or even see the evidence against them. Amnesty International has said the trials "bore no resemblance to a meaningful judicial proceeding."

State TV also aired footage of Karami and Hosseini talking about the attack, though the broadcaster for years has aired what activists describe as coerced confessions.

In this undated photo released on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023, by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, speaks with Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan, Iran. Ayatollah Khamenei on Saturday, Jan. 7, appointed Gen. Radan as the new chief of police. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

The men were convicted of the killing, as well as "corruption on Earth," a Quranic term and charge that has been levied against others in the decades since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and carries the death penalty.

Activists say at least 16 people have been sentenced to death in closed-door hearings over charges linked to the protests. Death sentences in Iran are typically carried out by hanging.

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At least 517 protesters have been killed and over 19,200 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has closely monitored the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided an official count of those killed or detained.

The protests began in mid-September, when 22-year-old Amini died after being arrested by Irans morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republics strict dress code. Women have played a leading role in the protests, with many publicly stripping off the compulsory Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab.

This is a locator map for Iran with its capital, Tehran. (AP Photo)

The protests mark one of the biggest challenges to Iran's theocracy since the 1979 revolution. Security forces have used live ammunition, bird shot, tear gas and batons to disperse protesters, according to rights groups.

Also on Saturday, Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed a new hard-line chief of police, the official IRNA news agency reported. Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan replaced outgoing Gen. Hossein Ashtari after Ashtaris eight-year term of service ended.

Radan, who served as acting commander of police from 2008-2014, is known for his harsh handling of protesters during post-election turmoil in 2009. He also imposed measures against women wearing loose Islamic veils and young men with long hair.

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The U.S. and Europe imposed sanctions on Radan for human rights violations in 2009 and 2010.

He has been in charge of a police research center since 2014.

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Iran executes 2 more men detained amid nationwide protests

Protesters have gathered outside a prison near the Iranian capital in an attempt to prevent the rumoured imminent execution of two young detainees found guilty of running over a police officer in a car during protests in November.

Footage posted on social media showed the mother of one of the men, 22-year-old Mohammad Ghobadlou, pleading for her son outside Rajaei-Shahr prison in Karaj, a satellite city west of Tehran. She said it had been established that her son had not been at the scene when the police officer died.

Human rights activists had raised the alarm after Ghobadlou and fellow prisoner Mohammad Boroughani were taken to solitary confinement, which is often a preliminary step before execution. Their lawyers are claiming the two men require a retrial in the supreme court.

Four people have been executed so far in relation to the protest movement that has swept Iran since the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in September. Some warnings of imminent executions have proved false, possibly because protests around specific prisoners have unnerved the authorities.

Iranian ambassadors in Europe are still being summoned over the execution of two men on Saturday, and Iran is now having to weigh up whether to ignore the international condemnation over the lack of due process, including prisoners being denied access to lawyers of their choice.

On Monday, a daughter of the former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was sentenced to five years over propaganda and acts against national security for encouraging people to join the protests.

Faezeh Hashemi, 60, a former lawmaker and womens rights activist, was charged with collusion against national security, propaganda against the Islamic republic and disturbing public order by participating in illegal gatherings, her lawyer said.

The repression, which is seen by the Iranian authorities as an appropriate response to injuries inflicted on security officers during the protests, is stifling any chances of the talks of a renewed nuclear deal, pushing part of the Iranian regime to look for closer relations with Russia as an alternative to the west.

Over the weekend the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, attended memorials in Toronto for the 176 people killed on Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 that was shot down by Irans Revolutionary Guards on 8 January 2020.

Trudeau said the Tehran regime did not represent its people, a position that takes him closer to expelling Iranian diplomats from Canada, one of the key demands of the protestors in the large and increasingly unified Iranian diaspora.

The execution of two men, Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Mohammad Hosseini, on Saturday led to protests around the world, but no immediate sanctions.

The French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, described the executions as appalling, adding that France reiterated its opposition to the death penalty, in all places and in all circumstances. French senators have also tabled a resolution calling on the EU to end nuclear negotiations with Iran; designate the Revolutionary Guardsas a terrorist organisation; as well as several other measures.

The Canadian foreign minister, Mlanie Joly, also denounced the executions, saying: Two more lives lost to senseless executions from the Iranian regime. Calling on Iran to put an end to such brutal and inhumane sentences, Joly expressed solidarity with Iranians who have a right to their human rights.

Nasrin Sotoudeh, a lawyer and human rights activist in Iran, said due process had not been allowed, turning the executions into open murder.

The Iranian foreign ministry rejected the criticism, saying: Remarks of self-styled defenders of human rights are replete with racist thoughts.

Iranian judicial news agencies reported that Saleh Mirhashemi, a karate champion, had been sentenced to death, along with two others. Amir Nasr Azadani, a former football player, was sentenced to 26 years in prison.

The Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution meanwhile slammed the door on relaxing rules around the hijab, saying in a lengthy statement that western societies had destroyed the family by promoting female sexuality. Covering up causes a woman to be recognised in society by her thoughts and personality, not by her body and beauty, it said. This is the greatest service that religions, especially Islam, have given to women, which obliges her to observe hijab so that her dignity is preserved and she is not sold or passed around like a commodity.

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Protesters gather at Iranian prison in attempt to stop imminent ...

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