Iran announced on Thursday that it carried out its first execution of a prisoner convicted of a crime allegedly committed during the country's ongoing nationwide protests.

Other detainees also face the death penalty for their participation in the protests, which began as an outcry against Iran's morality police and have grown into one of the gravest challenges to Iran's theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Since, according to activists, at least a dozen people have been sentenced to death for their participation in the demonstrations, activists warn that additional executions are imminent.

The "execution of #MohsenShekari must be met with STRONG reactions," wrote Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Oslo-based activist organization Iran Human Rights. "This execution must have immediate repercussions internationally"

The news agency Mizan in Iran reported the execution. In Tehran, he was accused of blocking a street and attacking a security officer with a machete.

The executed man was identified as Mohsen Shekari by the news agency run by the country's judiciary, Mizan. It stated that he had been convicted by Tehran's Revolutionary Court, which typically holds closed-door proceedings that have been criticized internationally in other cases for not allowing defendants to choose their attorneys or even view the evidence against them.

Mizan stated that Shekari was arrested on September 25 and convicted on November 20 of "moharebeh," which is the Farsi word for "waging war against God." Since 1979, others have been charged with this crime, which carries the death penalty.

Iran is one of the leading executioners in the world. Typically, prisoners are executed by hanging. Amnesty International has already obtained a document signed by a senior Iranian police commander requesting that the execution of a prisoner be "completed 'in the shortest time possible' and that his death sentence be carried out in public as a 'heartwarming gesture towards the security forces.'"

Since the September 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being detained by the country's morality police, Iran has been rocked by protests. Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has monitored the protests since they began, reports that at least 475 people have been killed in the demonstrations due to a heavy-handed security crackdown. Over 18 thousand individuals have been detained by authorities.