Fact-Check: This Man Was Not Punished for Writing Post Against Iran’s President

The man, identified as Majid Kavousifar, was executed in 2007 for fatally shooting a judge in Tehran.

A photo of a man, with a noose around his neck, has gone viral on social media, along with a photograph of a toddler.

The claim: The photo is being shared to claim that the man was hanged in public, in front of his daughter, for social media posts against the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

• The claim comes a day after Raisi's death in a helicopter crash on Monday, 20 May.

(Archived versions of more claims on social media can be seen here and here.)

Is it true?: No, the photograph dates back to 2007 and shows Majid Kavousifar, who, along with his nephew, was executed after being convicted for killing a judge.

How did we find out?: We ran a reverse image search on the image using Google.

• The results included a post with a collage of the man's images on a Facebook page called 'Remember Majid Kavousifar', shared in February 2014.

Using the name as keywords, we looked for more information on Kavousifar.

(NOTE: Links to external websites may carry graphic descriptions and visuals. Readers' discretion is advised.)

Execution of Majid Kavousifar: We came across a BBC report with a photo of the same man, published in August 2007, which mentioned that Majid and Hossein Kavousifar were publicly hanged after being convicted for the murder of a judge in Tehran.

• The two were uncle and nephew, as per a Reuters report, which also mentioned that Majid had not expressed any remorse for the murder, as he believed that the judge they shot dead in 2005 was corrupt.

• Several news reports and social media posts mentioned how Majid remained smiling until he was executed.

• We came across several visuals of Majid and Hossein's execution on Wikimedia commons and stock image websites such as Getty Images and Alamy.

The girl: None of these reports mentioned Majid's daughter being present during the hanging.

• However, Reuters Pictures' website carried the photo of the girl, confirming that her picture was taken during Kavousifars' hanging.

Conclusion: A photo of man being hanged for fatally shooting an Iranian judge is being shared to falsely claim that he was executed for a social media post against Raisi.

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