Iran executes two men over charges of blasphemy
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Iran executed two men on Monday over charges of blasphemy.
The two men, Youssef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli Zare, died at Arak Prison in central Iran. They had been arrested in May 2020, accused of being involved in a channel on the Telegram message app called “Critique of Superstition and Religion,” according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIR), Associated Press reported.
Iran judiciary’s Mizan news agency confirmed the executions, saying that the two men had insulted Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and promoted atheism. The agency also accused them of burning the Holy Quran.
Iran remains one of the world’s top executioners, having put to death at least 203 prisoners since the start of 2023, according to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR).
Mahmoud Amiry-Moghaddam, head of the IHR, decried the executions as exposing the “medieval nature” of Iran’s theocracy.
“The international community must show with its reaction that executions for expressing an opinion is intolerable,” he said in a statement, adding that “The refusal of the international community to react decisively is a green light for the Iranian government and all their like-minded people around the world.”
In 2022, Iran executed at least 582 people, up from 333 people in 2021, according to Iran Human Rights. Amnesty International’s most-recent report on executions put Iran as the world’s second-largest executioner, behind only China, where thousands are believed to be put to death a year.