The two men were found guilty of “insulting the Prophet Muhammad and other blasphemies including burning the Koran”.
Two men have been executed by hanging in Iran for burning a copy of the Koran and insulting the Prophet Muhammad, the judicial authority news agency Mizan Online reported on Monday.
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.
“Spreading Atheism”
In March 2021, one of the defendants admitted to having published on a Telegram account, created to “discredit the Islamists”, the said insults, Mizan said.
According to justice, Mehrdad was arrested in Ardabil, in the northwest. He had created “a very popular group” on the internet to “propagate atheism” in Iran.
A video “alluding to the burning of the Koran” was discovered on the accused’s phone and was reposted on his account, the same source said.
While examining Fazeli Zare’s electronic devices, a “popular account” that “promotes atheism” and “insults religious values” was identified.
According to Mizan, the two men had declared during the trial that “certain religious” had condemned them for “apostasy”, without elaborating.
Executions on the rise
Iran is the second country with the highest number of executions after China, according to several NGOs, including Amnesty International.
In 2022, the number of people executed was up 75% compared to a year earlier, two NGOs, Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Norway, and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), based in Norway, said in April. in Paris.
At least 582 people were executed in Iran in 2022, a record since 2015, against 333 in 2021, said these two NGOs in a joint report.
Tehran has criticized the European Union’s condemnation of the execution on Saturday of an Iranian-Swedish dissident, Habib Chaab, convicted of “terrorism”.
For Sweden, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, “the death penalty is an inhuman and irreversible sanction”.
