Two men executed in Iran for “insulting the Prophet Muhammad”

First modification: 09/05/2023 – 02:45Last modification: 09/05/2023 – 02:50

Sadrollah Fazeli Zare and Youssef Mehrdad, convicted of “insulting the Prophet Muhammad and other blasphemies, including burning the Koran,” were hanged on Monday morning, according to the agency’s website.

In March 2021, one of the defendants had admitted to having posted on a Telegram account, created to “discredit Islamists”, such insults, according to Mizan.

According to the court, Youssef Mehrdad was detained in Ardabil, in the northwest of the country. And he claimed that he had created “a very popular group” on the Internet to “propagate atheism” in Iran. A video “hinting at the burning of the Koran” was found on the defendant’s phone and was republished on his account, as the same source points out.

Examining Sadrollah Fazeli Zare’s electronic devices identified a “popular account” promoting “atheism” and “insulting religious values.”

About 582 people were executed in Iran in 2022

According to Mizan, the two men had said during the trial that “some clerics” had convicted them of “apostasy”, without elaborating.

Iran is the country with the second highest number of executions after China, according to several NGOs, including Amnesty International.

In 2022, the number of people executed was 75% higher than in 2021, two NGOs, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM), based in Norway, declared in April. Paris.

At least 582 people were executed in Iran in 2022, a record number since 2015, compared to 333 in 2021, both NGOs said in a joint report.

Tehran criticized the European Union’s condemnation of the execution on Saturday of a Swedish-Iranian dissident, Habib Chaab, convicted of “terrorism.”

Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency, declared the death penalty an inhuman and irreversible punishment.

with AFP

This article was adapted from its original in French.