A young inmate has been sentenced to death by Branch 1 of the Markazi Province penal court, central Iran, for “insulting the Prophet.”
Mohammad Nouri is at the risk of imminent execution for his text on an instant messenger app and “insulting Islam”. His death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in February.
Sina Dehghan, 21, has also been sentenced to death by Iranian authorities in the same case. He was only 19 when he sent the messages and was arrested in October of 2015 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). During his interrogation he was deceived into signing a confession and repented, and his family was allegedly told he will be released if they remained silent about the charges. However, the sentences of the two has now been upheld by the country’s Supreme Court.
Sina Dehghan and Mohammad Nuri are being held in Arak Prison, west of Iran. They both repeatedly expressed regret and repentance.
“Iran is believed to execute more people per capita than any other country,” according to Amnesty International. There were 289 state executions carried out in Iran in 2014, the majority of which (up to 74 per cent) were for drugs-related offences, the rights organization added.
“The number of executions in the Islamic fundamentalist country is reported to be on the rise and according to the UN, at least 966 people were put to death in the country in 2015.
Iran has attracted widespread condemnation for carrying out executions of minors, despite having signed the UN convention on the rights of the child,” according to the Independent
.
