An Iranian Man Being Hanged In Front Of His Daughter For Posting Against The Iranian Government On Social Media? Here’s The Truth Behind The Viral Image.

Recently an image went viral on social media with the claim that it shows an Iranian girl watching her father being hanged for posting on social media opposing the Iranian government. The image is a collage of two photos, one showing a man smiling with a noose around his neck while the other photo shows a little girl standing.

Facebook Link | Archived Link.

However, as we investigated, we came to know that the claim was false. Here’s the fact check.

Fact Check 

We started our investigation by conducting a reverse image search. This led us to the stock image website Alamy where we found a similar image. The caption reads, “Majid Kavousifar, 28, a convicted murderer of Hassan Moghaddas, a hardline deputy prosecutor and head of the “guidance” court in Tehran, waves before his publicly hanged in central Tehran, Iran on August 2, 2007.”

According to reports, Majid Kavousifar was an Iranian civilian who along with his nephew (Hossein Kavousifar) killed Judge Masoud Ahmadi Moghaddasi in August 2005. 

A report published in the BBC on 2 August 2007 read, “…Their execution was held at the same location as the murder, and on the same date, in front of a large picture of the murdered judge.

When Hossein Kavousifar looked distressed as he awaited his execution, his uncle gestured to him and smiled in an attempt to reassure him…”

Other reports and images can be seen here, here and here.

We found the image of the little girl in the viral image in a report published in The Times of India on 2 August 2007. The caption of the image read, “A girl attends the hanging of Majid Kavousifar and Hossein Kavousifar, the killers of a judge who had jailed several reformist dissidents, in Tehran, before a crowd of hundreds of people on Thursday.”

Other images of the execution can be seen here and here. 

None of the reports stated that the little girl present during the execution was Majid Kavousifar’s daughter.

Conclusion 

From our investigation, we can say that the claim is false. The viral image doesn’t show a man being hanged in front of his daughter, for posting against the Iranian government on social media. The man in the viral image was Majid Kavousifar, who along with his nephew Hossein Kavousifar was hanged publicly in Tehran, Iran on 2 August 2007 for killing a judge. Moreover, none of the reports mentioned that the little girl was his daughter.