Iran executed a second detainee in less than a week on Monday publicly hanging a man from a construction crane after he was convicted of crimes committed during protests against the country’s regime.

Majidreza Rahnavard was put to death just weeks after he allegedly fatally stabbed two members of a paramilitary force after purportedly becoming angry about security forces killing protesters.

Iran’s Mizan news agency, which falls under the country’s judiciary, published a collage of images of Rahnavard hanging from the crane, his hands and feet bound, a black bag over his head.

Masked security force members stood guard in front of concrete and metal barriers that held back a gathered crowd in the city of Mashhad.

Activists on social media criticized the execution of the 23-year-old Rahnavard as “a criminal act” by Iran’s clerical rulers to deter dissent.

“They called Rahnavard’s family at 7 a.m. and told them to go to the Behesht-e Reza cemetery. ‘We executed your child and buried him,'” widely followed activist account 1500Tasvir posted on Twitter, explaining how authorities handled the case of their son.

Activists warn at least a dozen people have already been sentenced to death in closed-door hearings.

Rights group Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) said that as of Sunday, 488 people have been killed, including 68 children, since the demonstrations erupted in mid-September over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who died in the custody of Iran’s morality police after being detained for “improperly” wearing her hijab.

Another 18,200 people have been detained by authorities, according to HRAI, which has been monitoring the protests.

Mizan alleged Rahnavard had stabbed two security force members to death Nov. 17 in Mashhad and wounded four others.

Footage aired on state TV showed a man chasing another around a street corner, then standing over him and stabbing him after he fell against a parked motorbike. Another showed the same man stabbing another immediately after.

The assailant — which state TV claimed was Rahnavard — then fled.

The Mizan report identified the dead as “student” Basij, paramilitary volunteers under Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

The Basij force has been at the forefront of the state crackdown on protests.

A heavily edited state television report aired after Rahnavard’s execution showed clips of him in the courtroom. In the video, he says he came to hate the Basijis after seeing video clips on social media of the forces beating and killing protesters.

The Mizan report accused Rahnavard of trying to flee to a foreign country when he was arrested.

Mizan said Rahnavard was convicted in Mashhad’s Revolutionary Court on the charge of “moharebeh” — a Farsi word meaning “waging war against God” – which carries the death penalty.

In the images of his execution, a banner bearing a Quran verse: “Indeed the requital of those who wage war against Allah and His Apostle, and try to cause corruption on the earth, is that they shall be slain or crucified, or shall have their hands and feet cut off from opposite sides, or be banished from the land.”

Public hangings from a crane have been rare in recent years, though Iran used the same manner of hanging to put down unrest following the disputed 2009 presidential election and the Green Movement protests that followed.

Typically, those condemned are alive as the crane lifts them off their feet, hanging by a rope and struggling to breathe before they asphyxiate or their neck breaks.

Activists have put pressure on companies providing cranes to Iran in the past, warning they can be used for executions.

In Brussels, the European Union’s foreign ministers expressed dismay at the latest execution.

The bloc is set to approve a fresh series of sanctions against Iran over its crackdown on protesters, and also for supplying drones to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he spoke to Iran’s foreign minister regarding Tehran’s response to the protests and the latest execution and that it was “not an easy conversation.”

“We are going to approve a very, very tough package of sanctions,” Borrell said.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said: “We are making clear that we stand beside innocent people in Iran.

“A system that treats its people in this way cannot expect to continue to have halfway normal relations with the European Union.”

The Iranian state executed 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari, the first prisoner detained during demonstrations, last Thursday.

Rights groups have said Shekari was tortured and forced to confess to injuring a security guard with a knife and blocking a city street.

So far this year Iran has executed over 500 prisoners, the highest number in five years, according to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights.

With Post wires