Tehran
\nIn a rare public display of defiance in Iran, protesters have shouted anti-government slogans outside the home of a Kurdish man who has been executed.
\nCrowds gathered in Heidar Ghorbani\u2019s hometown of Kamyaran, in Kurdistan province, calling him a martyr.
\nGhorbani, who was 48, was convicted of the murder of three people linked to Iran\u2019s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.
\nBut he had denied any connection with the killings, and human rights groups said he was a political prisoner.
\nGhorbani was also found guilty of being a member of an exiled armed opposition group – the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) – that fights for greater autonomy for Iran\u2019s Kurdish community.
\nHe was executed at Sanandaj prison in north-western Iran on Sunday.
\nIranian social media users had held several campaigns against his death sentence this year, after the Supreme Court upheld the verdict.
\nHuman rights groups claim his conviction was based on questionable evidence gained under torture and that he had allegedly been denied a lawyer during the investigation.
\nIn September, the United Nations urged Iran not to go ahead with the execution and to repeal his death sentence.
\nUN human rights experts said it was \u201ctroubling that courts continue to issue death sentences in trials that not only breach international fair trial standards, but even domestic law and due process guarantees\u201d.
\nAmnesty International had also called on Tehran to \u201cquash his sentence and grant him a fair retrial\u201d.
\nIran has carried out more executions annually in recent years than any other country except China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tehran In a rare public display of defiance in Iran, protesters have shouted anti-government slogans outside the home of a Kurdish man who has been executed. Crowds gathered in Heidar Ghorbani\u2019s hometown of Kamyaran, in Kurdistan province, calling him a martyr. Ghorbani, who was 48, was convicted of the murder of three people linked to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-234072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n