IRAN - Two men sentenced to death for insulting the Prophet Muhammad
April 22, 2021: Two Iranians have been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad. One of the men has been identified as Yousef Mehrad, but there is no information about his co-defendant’s identity. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported on April 22 that the two men were arrested and transferred to prison in Arak, the capital of Markazi Province, in May 2020. An Arak court convicted the pair of “insulting the prophet,” which carries the death penalty, the report said. Human rights defender Narges Mohammadi also revealed the verdict on her Instagram account. It was not clear what the charge stemmed from. One of the two men was identified as Yusef Mehrdad, a father of three, who was arrested by security forces at his home in Ardebil at 6am on 24 May 2020 and transferred to Arak for interrogations. He was kept in solitary confinement for two months and was denied access to a lawyer or even contact with his family for eight months. He is facing a number of other charges, including insulting Iranian leaders and acting against national security. The second man has not been identified by HRANA. In 2017, Iran dropped a death sentence handed to a man convicted of insulting the Prophet Muhammad in a series of Facebook posts. According to Article 262 of the Islamic Penal Code, insulting the prophet is punishable by death, however, Article 263 stipulates that “if the defendant states in court that they made the insulting statement out of anger, coercion, mistake or slip of the tongue, or quoting someone else…their death sentence shall be changed to a punishment of 74 lashes.”
https://www.rferl.org/a/two-iranians-death-sentences-for-insulting-prophet-muhammad/31219704.html https://iranhr.net/en/articles/4710/ https://www.hra-news.org/2021/hranews/a-29780/ (in Farsi) (Source: Radio Farda, IHR)
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