Death Penalty News

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran hanged two men Monday convicted of blasphemy, authorities said, carrying out rare death sentences for the crime as executions surge across the Islamic Republic following months of unrest. Iran remains one of the world's top executioners, having put to death at least 203 prisoners since the start of this year alone, according to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights. But carrying out executions for blasphemy remains rare, as previous cases saw the sentences reduced by authorities. The two men executed, Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli Zare, died at Arak Prison in central Iran. They had been arrested in May 2020, accused of being involved in a channel on the Telegram message app called “Critique of Superstition and Religion,” according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Both men faced months of solitary confinement and could not contact their families, the commission said.

A hate preacher in the United Kingdom has urged the Taliban to stone adulterers, slash thieves’ hands, and outlaw music. Adulterers must be stoned to death, thieves’ hands must be chopped off, and music must be banned, according to a UK-based hate preacher. In a 3,500-word document titled Sincere Advice To The Leadership Of The Taliban, Anjem Choudary, 54, the man accused of instigating multiple terrorist deaths, presented his frightening appraisal.  Last week, a hardline Islamist movement took control of Afghanistan, frightening the world with the rapidity with which they advanced. Seven people were killed last night in the pandemonium at Kabul airport as thousands of people attempted to exit the country, highlighting the fear that many people have about the takeover. Choudary, who served five years in prison for supporting ISIS before being released in 2018, was previously barred from speaking in public, but that restriction was lifted last month. Choudary expressed his views on ...

A court in Marrakech exempted the family of the Danish victim from paying judicial tax for the compensation. The lawyer of the family described the move as the 1st and an unprecedented action in the country. The family of the murdered Danish victim in Imlil, a town near Marrakech, is demanding Morocco’s Judiciary to execute the death penalty against the main perpetrators of the heinous crime. In 2019, a court sentenced 3 defendants to the death penalty for brutally killing two Scandanavian tourists in December 2018.  The court imposed sentences ranging between 30-years and life imprisonment for other suspects involved with the murder. RELATED |  Moroccan court orders death penalty for jihadists who beheaded tourists The family of the Danish victim, Maren Ueland, repeatedly prompted the execution of the death penalty against the main perpetrators. The lawyer of the family, Khalid Fataoui, told Morocco World News that the mother of the victim “speaks up for death penalty against...

The detention of Raman Pratasevich shows how far the Belarusian dictator-president will go to shut down protest On Sunday, three secret service agents and a Belarusian fighter jet “hijacked” a Ryanair plane from Athens as it crossed Belarusian airspace, just minutes before it reached Lithuania. The target was an opposition journalist, Raman Pratasevich, who helps run the Telegram channel Nexta, the main voice of the Belarusian opposition, many of whom are now in exile in Lithuania and Poland. This seems to be Belarus’s equivalent of a Litvinenko or Navalny moment – a message to the opposition that no one is safe from the regime, whether at home or abroad. RELATED |  Belarus reporter said 'death penalty awaits me here' — witness From detention in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, Pratasevich was forced to make what looks like a hostage video, “admitting” to organising mass disturbances and appearing as if he had been badly beaten. Pratasevich, however, is just one of hundreds of ...

(CNN) -- A leading Belarusian opposition activist has been arrested in Belarus after President Alexander Lukashenko ordered a fighter jet to escort his Ryanair plane to Minsk, according to Pull Pervogo, Belarusian state broadcaster. Raman Pratasevich, in exile and a vocal critic of President Alexander Lukashenko's regime, was detained at Minsk airport, the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs said on Sunday. The original flight route was Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has demanded Belarus releases Pratasevich. Nauseda called the incident "abhorrent" and an "unprecedented event" in a tweet. He said a "civilian passenger plane flying to Vilnius was forcibly landed in Minsk." The Belarusian "regime is behind the abhorrent action," he tweeted and demanded Pratasevich is freed "urgently." Pratasevich is the founder of the Telegram channel Nexta which was broadly used to organiz...