The Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor of Tabas in eastern Iran said Saturday, February 1 that a tourist was lashed 80 times for drinking alcohol on a tour.
Amir Zare Hosseini who was cited by the state-run Tasnim news agency said the whole “legal procedure” and sentence implementation was carried out in less than five hours.
The Tabas prosecutor claimed that the sentence had not been appealed and was carried out because the person had not objected to the verdict in the initial court.
“In the existing videos, a person was drinking alcohol and after legal procedures were carried out, the verdict was issued and since the defendant did not protest, the sentence was carried out,” Hosseini said.
He said that more than one and half liters of alcohol was found in the bus carrying the tourists.
“According to article 264 and 265 in the Islamic Penal Code, (drinking alcohol) is punishable by 80 lashes, which was carried out today in this case,” Amir Zare’ Hosseini added without elaborating the case.
“On Friday January 31, a number of people drank alcohol on a tour in Tabas,” he said adding that they had “confessed” to their “crime”.
The cleric, stressed that while tourism was good for the economy, tourists “had to follow the laws of the Islamic Republic including the hijab and Islamic culture and refrain from breaking the norms.”
“If a person intends to break the norms, similar to today’s case which was seen to in less than five hours, they will be dealt with, with the same speed, severity and decisive manner,” he said.
Torture has been institutionalized in the regime’s punishment laws and is sanctioned by the Judiciary as well as the regime officials.
Under the regime’s laws, at least 148 crimes are punishable by flogging and 20 others are punishable by amputation.
The offences include theft, assault, vandalism, defamation and fraud.
They also cover acts that should not be criminalized, such as adultery, intimate relationships between unmarried men and women, “breach of public morals” and consensual same-sex sexual relations.
In July 2019, a Kurdish singer and prisoner of conscience Peyman Mirzazadeh was flogged 100 times.
Peyman Mirzazadeh had been sentenced to two years in prison and 100 lashes after being convicted of “drinking alcohol” and “insulting Islamic sanctities”. The flogging was carried out on 28 July and left him in agonizing pain with a severely swollen back and legs.
