A group of citizens gathered Wednesday morning outside Babylon Prison in hopes that the execution sentence of Ali Mirrezaei, a Mazanderani folk singer, would be halted. The gathering, which throughout the final hours was accompanied by calls to the victim’s family to forgive, ultimately failed to prevent the execution of the sentence.

Ali Mirrezaei was arrested in Esfand 1400 in connection with the killing of a young man named “Erfan Derzinejad” during a scuffle at a café in Babylon, and was sentenced in the murder case to qisas (retaliation).

The family of Erfan Derzinejad had previously given Mirrezaei two months to try to obtain their consent and forgiveness. As the execution date approached, calls to waive qisas increased, and last night a number of citizens gathered outside the prison and asked the victim’s family to refrain from carrying out the sentence.

In the end, these efforts were in vain, and Ali Mirrezaei’s execution sentence was carried out.

Execution is an irreversible punishment, and human rights organizations have been calling for years for it to be halted in Iran. Iran continues to be one of the countries that carries out the highest number of death sentences in the world.