Bangla Press Desk: A 23-year-old woman in Iran has been sentenced to death on charges of blasphemy for posting derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on social media. The British newspaper *The Guardian* reported this on Wednesday (October 14).
The young woman, Najmeh Amini, is an accounting student. She is currently being held at Vakilabad Prison in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad. She has received a prison sentence of over 12 years and a death sentence in two separate cases tried by the Revolutionary Court and the Criminal Court.
A source close to Amini's family informed the US-based human rights organization, Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI), that she was sentenced to death on the charge of "Sabb-al-Nabi"—insulting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
She was arrested after Iran's cyber police monitored her online activity. However, the exact content of her social media posts has not been publicly disclosed.
In the second case, Amini was sentenced to 12 years, six months, and one day in prison on various charges, including acting against national security and spreading propaganda against the government. Security forces arrested her during nationwide protests in January.
Those protests were suppressed through a deadly crackdown.
Under Article 262 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code, insulting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) or revered Shia religious figures carries the death penalty. However, Article 263 stipulates that leniency may be granted in certain cases if the statement was made while intoxicated or without malicious intent; nevertheless, offenders can still face up to 74 lashes in specific circumstances. According to a report by the Iranian newspaper *Khorasan*, which confirmed the judicial proceedings, Amini told the court that she made the remarks while under the influence of psychedelic mushrooms consumed with friends.
Her lawyers also argued that it was a "slip of the tongue."
However, the judge rejected her defense arguments. The report states that the judge asked him, "Why did you not insult other individuals or opponents of the government—such as America and Israel—while in that same state of delusion?"
However, Amini's death sentence has not yet been finalized; there remains an opportunity to appeal to Iran's Supreme Court. While the number of executions in Iran has risen in recent years—reaching its highest level in three decades—capital punishment for blasphemy remains relatively rare.
The most recent recorded instance of this occurred on May 8, 2023, when Yousef Mehrdad and Sadrollah Fazeli-Zare were executed. They had been sentenced to death after being convicted of blasphemy related to their activities on social media.
BP/TD
.jpg)
