Rights groups warn of Tehran regime’s increasing use of executions to suppress dissent, with at least 600 this year

Human rights groups have raised the alarm over the growing number of death sentences and executions in Iran, after reports that a 23-year-old woman, Najmeh Amini, has been sentenced to death for blasphemy over a social-media post.

Amini, an accounting student, is being held in Vakilabad prison in the north-east city of Mashhad. She has been sentenced to more than 12 years in prison and death in separate cases heard by a revolutionary and a criminal court.

A source close to Amini’s family told the US-based Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) that Amini was sentenced to death on charges of “sab ol-nabi” (insulting the prophet). She was reportedly arrested following online monitoring by Iran’s Cyber Police (Fata). The exact content of her posts has not been publicly disclosed.

  • hemmes@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    Imagine living in a country of mental patients where if you insult their favorite storybook character, they have this burning urge to kill you. It’s manic obsession.

    What kind of profit prophet wants people to die in their name for an insult?

    • modifier@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      If you live in America know that our regime is taking notes on these features of Iran’s.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Imagine living in a country of mental patients where if you insult their favorite storybook character, they have this burning urge to kill you.

      Nervous anti-Harry Potter noises

      What kind of profit wants people to die in their name for an insult?

      We’re seven levels deeper than “What did the Prophet literally want you to do?” Because a lot of this is seen as a very secular form of treason, subversion, or other form of espionage. Iranians are deeply paranoid, particularly of “Western” influences, because the state leadership believes it is used to cultivate double-agents for the purpose of sabotage or counter-revolution.

      In some sense, it’s like walking into an airport with a big t-shirt that reads “Dis Guys Da Bomb!” and getting tackled by security. The thing they’re responding to isn’t a banal fashion choice.

      • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        Half a step? We’re all set to do public executions, idk about half step, maybe a goose step…

        • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          Comparing the execution of Nidal to this woman is a little strange. I’m not advocating for public executions, at least I hope that’s obvious, but to claim they’re even remotely similar is an extreme exaggeration.

          • NEZ27@lemmy.zip
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            1 day ago

            Their crimes aren’t comparable, but the regimes’ actions are.

            Nidal may not be being executed for blasphemy/speaking out, but people in the US are absolutely being targeted for their beliefs and political leanings (on top of the classic skin color based arrests). Some are jailed, some are charged and released but still have to deal with the process, illegal deportations, and others are just disappeared outright.

            That part is hardly an exaggeration.

            • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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              1 day ago

              Let’s be clear, I’m not advocating for the Trump admin. That being said, there’s a wide berth between the actions of the current administration/U.S. and Iran’s. For one thing, many people in the U.S. aren’t simply going along with what the admin is doing and while people have died, we aren’t talking about ICE opening fire into crowds of protestors. The IRGC is not like this, they just kill people for whatever reason they want it seems (including blasphemy apparently).

              We aren’t there yet. Whether we reach that point remains to be seen, but the execution of a terrorist who killed 13 people and wounded (I think) 32 others is vastly different from killing women for speaking blasphemy.

              Again, I’m not advocating for public executions or even Nidal’s execution - I think he’s already in a living hell of his own making and to make him a martyr would be fulfilling his wishes. I am of the opinion we should not do that, and I’m also of the opinion that this is the crueler option. Shit’s complicated, yo.

          • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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            1 day ago

            Idk man, it’s the publicity, not the execution exactly. The spectacle…

          • zjti8eit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 day ago

            they’re clearly similar, I don’t even think the word remotely is necessary. The State shouldn’t be executing people.

            • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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              1 day ago

              They are not similar, executing a man for killing 13 people including a pregnant woman and injuring (at least) 32 other people is infinitely more justifiable than executing someone for blasphemy. It’s actually amazing he wasn’t killed already, regardless of how you feel about the execution - which I’m against.

              • CrossingtheAbyss@lemmy.today
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                16 hours ago

                I agree with your comments here. It’s refreshing to see some semblance of reason on forums/social media. Concerns me with how these venues have become inundated with radical and low brow content. I see it across the political spectrum. Been using forums since the late 90s. Up until the mid-2010s I’d argue there was much much more reasonable discussion to be found. I don’t doubt the proportional rise in bots have some play in it. Seems these places of discussion have become nothing more than a plot to sow hate and propaganda within our society. I miss the days when the vast majority of the population thought it silly to participate on these internet places.

                • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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                  4 hours ago

                  People are much, much angrier and feel more betrayed than they did in the 2000’s to 20-teens. I was under the impression that everyone got the message that conservatives were knuckle dragging, inbred troglodytes that should never be given power after Bush happened. Lo, and behold - Trump happened because these same knuckle dragging inbreds didn’t learn their lesson. The anger I feel towards conservative people is overwhelming, some of my darkest and most hateful thoughts are centered around them. I’m close to viewing them as subhuman.

                  All of this to say, things have changed. People aren’t willing to believe American bullshit anymore, and rightly so. That doesn’t mean we’ve become a place that executes people for blasphemy. We need to be level headed and clear eyed if we’re ever going to make it out of this fucking mess.

        • PattyMcB@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          The half step is that we can still insult Jesus without being executed… for now.

          And I’m starting to get a spider-sense-tingle whenever I bad mouth Trump these days.

    • rollin@piefed.social
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      What kind of profit wants people to die in their name for an insult?

      The normal kind of prophet. People who have voices in their head and start a cult kind of have an inflated idea of their own importance. It’s like their whole thing.

    • Malica@lemmy.zip
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      This is radical extremism, it happens in every religion eventually :(