Iranians Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli-Zare have been hanged after being convicted of ‘burning the Quran’ and ‘insulting the Prophet of Islam’, according to the Iranian judiciary’s news agency, Mizan.
The executions yesterday morning have been described by a rights group as ‘a cruel act by a medieval regime’.
The two men were arrested in 2020 and accused of running a Telegram channel called ‘Criticism of Superstition and Religion’, according to Iran’s Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). They were held in solitary confinement for the first two months and denied access to a lawyer, it said.
The BBC reports that, according to HRANA, in 2021, the Arak Criminal Court convicted Mehrad and Fazeli-Zare on blasphemy charges and sentenced them to death. They were also given six-year prison sentences for ‘running groups to act against national security’.
The Supreme Court rejected their appeals against the verdicts and upheld their death sentences later that year, Mizan said, adding that both men had ‘clearly confessed to their crimes’.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Norway-based group Iran Human Rights, was quoted by the BBC as saying: ‘The execution of Yousef and Sadrollah for ‘insulting the Prophet’ is not only a cruel act by a medieval regime, it is also a serious insult to the freedom of expression.
‘These executions must be a turning point in the relations between the Islamic Republic and countries respecting the freedom of expression,’ he added. ‘Lack of a strong reaction by the international community sends a green light to the Islamic Republic and their ideological allies worldwide.’
The BBC reports that Iran is second only to China in the number of executions carried out annually, and that it has put to death more than 200 people since the start of this year, according to a tally by Iran Human Rights.
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