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Demonstration against the execution of the death penalty against Akfari last Saturday in Berlin: spread fear and horror
Photo: ALEXANDER BECHER / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
Six hours before he dies last Saturday morning, Navid Afkari speaks one last time on the phone with his family in prison.
The recording of the conversation circulates on the Internet.
"Are you healthy?" He is asked.
Navid Afkari hesitates.
"Are you in the cell?"
"We are in the basement," replies the 27-year-old athlete.
Afkari's relatives already know the "basement" of the Adel Abad prison in Shiraz from previous conversations.
The term is an encoded synonym for the torture chamber of the detention center where Navid Afkari was held for over two years.
Serious demonstrations
The authorities in Iran had accused the popular athlete of killing a security officer at a demonstration in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz in November 2018.
Afkari insidiously stabbed the man with a knife.
The wrestler was sentenced to death in court.
Two of his brothers received long prison terms, 54 and 27 years, for "accessory to murder".
Afkari had protested his innocence to the end.
Back then, people spontaneously took to the streets in the cities of the Islamic Republic, including in Shiraz.
They were angry about the skyrocketing gasoline and food prices and the corruption in the state apparatus.
Intelligence officials mingled with the demonstrators.
Occasionally, they arbitrarily shot protesters in the head or in the chest.
The aim was to spread fear and terror.
Citizens should be prevented from taking to the streets.
However, demonstrators also resisted the brutal attacks by the plainclothed secret police.
There are no official death numbers, but various sources assume several hundred.
Most of the victims were civilians, but also security guards.
One of the dead was Hassan Turkaman, a man in his forties.
He belonged to the militant Basij, a sub-group of the Revolutionary Guard.
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Wrestler star Afkari: An Iranian hero
Photo: NWRI HANDOUT / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock / NWRI HANDOUT / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
Afkari was one of the leaders of the protests in Shiraz.
As an internationally successful wrestler, he was known and, above all, respected in Iran, the sport is considered particularly honorable, the athletes represent the principle of fairness and often advocate the rights of the weak and poor in civil life.
You could say he was an Iranian hero.
Arresting him and charging him with murder in what the human rights organization Amnesty International calls the "travesty of justice" sent a clear message to the Iranian opposition: no one will be spared;
Those who protest against the government must expect the worst.
Confession under torture
A recording was played during the trial in which Navid Afkari actually confesses to the murder.
However, the confession was extracted under torture.
The athlete had immediately revoked it.
From Navid Afkari's environment we know what led him to admit an act that he apparently did not commit: the torturers hung him up with their hands on the ceiling and beat him with cables and wooden sticks.
They also used a method called "Judsche" in torture jargon, which means "fried chicken".
The delinquent is stretched over a metal stick, like a roast chicken on a spit, the hands are tied with the feet.
The torturers roll their victim around the room and beat them at the same time.
Afkari broke his shoulder, says a family friend.
To escape the pressures of torture, the older brother, Waheed, tried to take his own life.
In the cell he cut his carotid artery with a broken glass.
Waheed was in a coma for days, but was saved in the end.
Last hope: public attention
When it became clear that the death sentence would be carried out against him, Afkari went public.
"They're looking for a neck for the gallows and they picked me," he said in an audio message smuggled out of prison.
Afkari tried everything to activate influential supporters in Iran and abroad: "If I am executed," he said in it, "I want you to know that an innocent person was executed despite trying and fighting with all his might has to be heard. "
"They are looking for a neck for the gallows and they have chosen me."
Navid Afkari
Even Afkaris compulsory attorney, son of a former Iranian secret service minister, protested on Twitter against the treatment of his client: "A confession that was made under pressure and torture is not valid. Navid Afkaris is innocent. There is no evidence against him."
Athletes and politicians around the world asked the Tehran government for mercy for Afkari's life, including a union that represents 85,000 athletes worldwide.
Even US President Donald Trump tweeted: "The wrestler's only act was an anti-government demonstration on the street."
It did not help.
How did Afkari die?
"The news says that you have been examined and that everything is okay with you and the brothers," said the relative on the last phone call with Afkari.
"I'm telling you the truth. They found ten to fifteen injuries on my body," replied Navid Afkari.
It appears that just hours before the planned execution, the regime took revenge on Navid Afkari for the last time, probably because he was tarnishing the reputation of the Islamic Republic of Iran with his international appeal for help.
How exactly Afkari died is still not entirely clear.
Not even whether he was really hung or possibly died as a result of torture, as relatives suspect.
"Were you in such a hurry that even the last right to say goodbye to the family could not be granted to him?" Asked Navid Afkari's lawyer on Twitter.
Iranian law allows those convicted to see their closest relatives before execution.
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Mother of the executed (on a video call): "How can you survive this?"
That Friday evening Afkari was told in prison that they wanted to transfer him to Tehran.
But he died on Saturday at 5 a.m. in Shiraz.
"Don't shout your grief out too loud, that's what they want"
At the funeral, which had to take place hastily on the same day, at 10 p.m., the parents were only allowed to take a quick look at the face of their son's body.
They saw traces of blood.
Navid Afkari's nose was broken.
A few days before his violent end, Navid Afkari's mother had asked a woman whose daughter was executed a few years ago: "How can you survive this?"
The woman whose daughter was hung replied: "Fight to the last. You must now be the hero that Navid was yourself, and after his death don't shout your grief too loud, that's what they want - us weak see and destroy. "
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