Death Penalty News

Iranian Court Imposes Flogging Sentences on Musician and Production Team The criminal division of the Qom provincial court has handed down 74-lash sentences to Iranian performer Parastoo Ahmadi and eight production staff members, according to legal assessments released this week.  The sentencing concludes a case initiated after a December 2024 YouTube livestream, in which Ahmadi performed an “imaginary concert” at a historic caravanserai without wearing a mandatory head covering. Beyond the corporal punishment, the court has mandated a two-year ban on the defendants leaving the country and a two-year prohibition on all professional creative work.

At least 358 people have been executed in North Korea since Kim Jong-un came to power in late 2011, with executions surging sharply following the country’s Covid-19 border shutdown, according to a report released Tuesday by a Seoul-based nongovernmental organization. The Transitional Justice Working Group said in its latest study, “Mapping North Korea’s Executions Before and After the Covid-19 Pandemic,” that it documented 136 executions between Dec. 17, 2011, and Dec. 16, 2024, resulting in at least 358 deaths. Including cases where death sentences were issued but not confirmed as carried out, the total rises to 144 cases involving 367 individuals.

North Korea dramatically increased executions during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly for consuming South Korean dramas, K-pop and other foreign culture and political offences, a report published Tuesday showed.  Pyongyang closed its borders in January 2020 to stop the spread of the coronavirus, with research and media reports indicating that the diplomatically isolated nation spent subsequent years bolstering security along its frontiers.  Campaigners have said the shutdown worsened longstanding human rights abuses in North Korea, whose government is widely seen as one of the world's most repressive.

Youth crackdown follows arrest, but young North Koreans say South Korean songs understand them better than the state does When a Ministry of State Security agent stopped a young man in a Hyesan alley in mid-February 2026 and demanded to know why he was listening to “rotten South Korean music,” he likely expected contrition. He did not get it. The man cited the lyrics back at him, word for word, and explained precisely why they resonated. The agent filed a report. The case went to the city party committee. A citywide ideological lecture followed.

People in North Korea, including schoolchildren, are being publicly executed, sent to labour camps or subjected to brutal public humiliation for watching South Korean television shows or listening to K-pop, according to new testimonies gathered by Amnesty International. North Koreans who fled the country told Amnesty that watching globally popular South Korean dramas – including Crash Landing on You, Descendants of the Sun and Squid Game – or listening to South Korean pop music can lead to the most extreme punishments, including death. Those without money or connections face the harshest consequences.

Defectors from the Pyongyang regime describe the growing repression and deterioration of human rights denounced by the UN Article 1 of North Korea ’s Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act, passed in 2020, outlines why Pyongyang believes the legislation is necessary: The law “contributes to the strengthening of our sense of ideology, revolution, and social class by launching a powerful battle to obstruct the inflow and distribution of reactionary ideology and culture and anti-socialist ideology and culture.” Article 7 adds that strict punishments, including the death penalty, will be applied to any citizen “bringing in, viewing, and distributing reactionary ideology and culture, depending on the severity, regardless of the reason and the offender’s social class.”

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 17, 2025: Asghar Jahangir, Iran’s Judiciary spokesman announced today that the blasphemy death conviction of Amirhossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, has been upheld by the Supreme Court and sent for enforcement. The singer’s defence lawyer, Majid Naghshi, previously reported filing a judicial review request. Reiterating its opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances, Iran Human Rights considers the use of this inhumane punishment for charges such as blasphemy to be a flagrant violation of international human rights law and calls on civil society and the international community not remain silent about Amirhossein Maghsoudlou’s death penalty.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Well-known Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, who supported the protest movement that sprang up in Iran last year, has avoided a death sentence and been jailed for six years and three months, his lawyer told Monday's edition of the daily newspaper Shargh. Salehi had expressed support online and in his songs for a wave of nationwide protest triggered by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman arrested for wearing "inappropriate attire". Salehi was convicted of "corruption on earth", which covers a broad range of offences including those related to Islamic morality, and can carry the death sentence.

His song ‘Di Sebalik Pintu Besi’ is still in need of a sponsor. Malaysian death row inmate Pannir Selvam Pranthaman may have penned his last song from Singapore’s Changi prison. Pannir turned a lyricist behind bars when he was convicted for drug trafficking in May 2017. His 1st song titled ‘Arah Tuju’ was brought to life by Malaysian artist Santesh Kumar and produced by NGO Sebaran Kasih. It was released in April 2021. His 2nd and current song titled ‘Di Sebalik Pintu Besi’ aims to give hope to other death row inmates. The song provides these inmates hope that there was light at the end of the dark, painful and lonely tunnel of solitary confinement. Pannir’s sister Angelia Pranthaman, 27, has not seen him in 2 years due to travel restrictions in the past years. She’s currently handling the song’s release on his behalf and is still looking for sponsors for the production of ‘Di Sebalik Pintu Besi.’ Despite not having sponsors yet, they have set the song to hit Malaysian airwaves at the ...