By Mostafa Salem | CNN
Iran hanged two folks on Monday who had been sentenced to dying for blasphemy, in keeping with the judiciary information company Mizan.
Yusef Mehrdad and Sadrullah Fazeli Zare had been arrested in Could 2020 and sentenced to dying in April 2021 for working on-line “anti-Islam teams and channels,” Mizan mentioned.
Authorities convicted each after they had been discovered to be members of a Telegram channel titled “Critique of Superstition and Faith,” in keeping with the US Fee on Worldwide Spiritual Freedom.
Members of the Telegram channel allegedly shared opinions insulting Islam. One member allegedly mentioned that they set non secular books on hearth, the US Fee on Worldwide Spiritual Freedom claimed. Iran’s state-run AlAlam mentioned Mehrdad was filmed burning the Quran.
Zare and Mehrdad had been denied household visits and cellphone requires eight months after their arrest. Mehrdad reportedly went on starvation strike in February 2022 to protest the authorities’ refusal to permit him to make cellphone calls, the US Fee on Worldwide Spiritual Freedom mentioned.
United Nations consultants have beforehand known as on Iran to cease the persecution of non secular minorities, underneath what they described as a coverage of concentrating on dissenting beliefs and non secular practices, together with Christian converts and atheists.
“Such state-sanctioned intolerance furthers extremism and violence. We name on the Iranian authorities to de-criminalize blasphemy and take significant steps to make sure the fitting to freedom of faith or perception,” the consultants mentioned in a assertion printed in August.
The executions come days after the execution of a twin Swedish-Iranian nationwide, Habib Chaab, who was convicted for main a nationwide Arab separatist group accused of assaults in Iran.
A joint report issued by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and the France-based Collectively Towards the Loss of life Penalty (ECPM) revealed no less than 582 executions had been carried out final yr — a 75% enhance from the earlier yr.
It was the best variety of executions within the Islamic republic since 2015, in keeping with the report launched final month.
The report discovered there was a “surge” of executions in Iran following the dying of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody in September. Amini’s dying sparked a months-long nationwide rebellion, which was finally quashed by a brutal police crackdown.