Iran sentences pop singer Tataloo to death for blasphemy

Court accepts prosecution’s objection to original 5-year jail term; verdict can be appealed; musician had been living in Istanbul but was handed over to Iran by Turkish police

TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian court has sentenced popular singer Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, to death on appeal after he was convicted of blasphemy, local media reported on Sunday.

“The Supreme Court accepted the prosecutor’s objection” to a previous five-year jail term on offenses including blasphemy, reformist newspaper Etemad reported online.

It said “the case was reopened, and this time the defendant was sentenced to death for insulting the prophet,” referring to Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

The report added that the verdict was not final and can still be appealed.

The 37-year-old underground musician had been living in Istanbul since 2018 before Turkish police handed him over to Iran in December 2023.

He has been in detention in Iran since then.

Tataloo had also been sentenced to 10 years for promoting “prostitution” and in other cases was charged with disseminating “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic and publishing “obscene content.”

The heavily tattooed singer, known for combining rap, pop and R&B, was previously courted by conservative politicians as a way of reaching out to young, liberal-minded Iranians.

Tataloo even held an awkward televised meeting in 2017 with ultra-conservative Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who later died in a helicopter crash.

In 2015, Tataloo published a song in support of Iran’s nuclear program when a landmark nuclear deal was signed with world powers, though it later unraveled in 2018 during the first US presidency of Donald Trump.

In January, the United Nations human rights chief reported that last year Iran executed over 900 people.

Activists are increasingly alarmed over the surge in hangings in Iran.

“It is deeply disturbing that yet again we see an increase in the number of people subjected to the death penalty in Iran year-on-year,” Volker Turk said at the time.

Iran uses capital punishment for major crimes including murder, drug trafficking, rape and sexual assault.

The Islamic Republic executes more people per year than any other nation except China, for which no reliable figures are available, according to human rights groups including Amnesty International.

They accuse the authorities under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of using capital punishment as a tool to instill fear throughout society, particularly in the wake of 2022-2023 nationwide protests.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, January 20, 2025

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