Iran on Monday hanged two men convicted of blasphemy, authorities said, carrying out unusual death sentences for the crime as executions spike across the Islamic Republic following months of unrest.
Iran remains one of the world’s leading executioners, having executed at least 203 prisoners since the start of this year alone, according to the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group. But carrying out executions for blasphemy remains rare, with authorities having reduced sentences in previous cases.
The two executed men, Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli Zare, died in Arak prison in central Iran. They had been arrested in May 2020, accused of being involved in a channel on the Telegram messaging app called «Criticism of Superstition and Religion,» according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. Both men faced months in solitary confinement and were unable to contact their families, the commission said.
Iran’s judiciary’s Mizan news agency confirmed the executions, describing the two men as insulting Islam’s prophet Muhammad and promoting atheism. Mizan also accused them of burning a Koran, Islam’s holy book, although it was unclear if the men allegedly did so or if those images were shared on the Telegram channel.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, who heads Iran’s Human Rights Department, denounced the executions as exposing the «medieval nature» of Iran’s theocracy.
«The international community must show by its reaction that executions for expressing an opinion are intolerable,» he said in a statement. «The international community’s refusal to react decisively is a green light for the Iranian government and all its like-minded people around the world.»
It was not immediately clear when Iran carried out its last execution for blasphemy. Other Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia, also allow death sentences for blasphemy.
The spate of executions, including members of ethnic minority groups in Iran, comes after months of protests over the death in September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest was put on ice by the country’s morality police. At least four people accused of alleged crimes committed during the demonstrations have already been executed. The protests, in which more than 500 people and 19,000 others were reportedly arrested, marked one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In 2022, Iran executed at least 582 people, up from 333 people in 2021, according to Iran Human Rights. Amnesty International’s latest report on executions ranks Iran as the world’s second-biggest executioner, behind only China, where thousands are believed to be executed each year.