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

      • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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        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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          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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            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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              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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            Idk man, it’s the publicity, not the execution exactly. The spectacle…

          • zjti8eit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            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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              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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                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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                  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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          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.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      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.

    • 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 :(

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.today
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    This is conservatism. Conservatives will always naturally push toward violent authoritarianism. Always.

    • Photonic@lemmy.world
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      Exactly, all these tankies rooting for Iran in this war make me sick. This is a horrible regime and there are no good guys in this war of stupidity and evil.

      • guyoverthere123@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        I’m rooting for Iran, not because they’re Iran, but because they were attacked and are fighting back.

        Fuck the United States.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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        Putting aside the tankies, I think a lot of people are just rooting for Iran because they want to see Trump’s stupidity blow up in his face. It’s not really about wanting Iran to win so much as it is about wanting the US to lose, because that kind of arrogance and belligerence deserves a downfall.

        And, of course, there are plenty of people who are rooting for Iran because the Iranian people are already struggling under an oppressive government and don’t deserve to then get bombed into the stone age by an angry, insecure man who just wants to make his dick feel big. Rooting for Iran and rooting for the Iranian government are not actually the same thing after all.

        • Photonic@lemmy.world
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          I think that’s what we all want, but I think some people are taking it a bit too far. A lot of people – rightfully – have strong feelings about the guy and things tend to get mixed up when emotions get involved.

      • BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
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        Is it okay to think the regime in Iran is bad, but still root for them in the war because they are the underdog, and were seemingly behaving under the Obama era agreement?

        And then be worried because now the Iranian regime will probably end up getting nukes, and that will mess with the power balance in the region/world.

        And think that it’s not all bad that the world can end up being forced to ditch fossil fuel because of this war.

        And then think Iran are assholes for supplying drones and other stuff to Russia.

        It’s complicated when so many things (mostly bad) are happening.

        Edit: I forgot to add the worry that this war can end up triggering WW3.

        • Photonic@lemmy.world
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          I think it’s definitely okay and agree with pretty much all those things. And we’ve never been closer to WW3 since the bay of pigs and Cuba nukes, and not just because of Iran. These are very delicate times for diplomats and I hope they will be able to put out all these fires raging around the world without major escalation of conflict.

      • moustachio@lemmy.world
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        I think it’s more people not want to fight the pedo-state of Israel’s war for them, rather than “rooting for iran.”

        Israel a million times more an adversary to the U.S. than Iran is.

        • Photonic@lemmy.world
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          Of course there are those too, but I’ve definitely seen the latter one on here as well. They were not even being coy about it either.

      • bantering@lemmy.zip
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        True.

        So anyways, are you going to tune in for the live execution we have coming up?

        • Photonic@lemmy.world
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          Luckily I’m not in the US, so we aren’t getting the same kind of dystopian fascism here – yet, anyway – but that is also something that makes me sick, as well as the botched execution of the other woman of whom I can’t remember the name of right now.

    • kromem@lemmy.world
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      Fuck religious extremism and orthodoxy wherever it rears its monstrous head.

    • stickyprimer@lemmy.world
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      Fuck their government. I have nothing but compassion for its people living under this kind of oppression.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        Yeah, my heart aches for the Iranians oppressed by their government. I hate their government for doing such things to them

  • bthest@lemmy.world
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    This is all on you America. This is your doing. This was not normal in Iran before Israel and America wiped out their moderate government.

    YOUR warmongering has insured that Iranian hardliners will remain in power for generations to come.

    You want to help those people? THEN GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST.

    Cause you sure as shit ain’t going to “liberate” a single person with your sad pathetic enshitified military.

    A source close to Amini’s family told the US-based Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) that Amini was sentenced to death.

    By the way this story is probably CIA horseshit to begin with.

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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      Poster: Iran is a shit hole and it is all Americas fault

      Same poster: This is a made up CIA story about Iran being a shit hole.

      So strange that the CIA has to make up stories about a country being shit that they helped ruin. Perhaps, just maybe it isn’t a made up sorry and Iran is just a shit hole?

    • Avicenna@programming.dev
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      Yeah if anything it quenched the rebellions more than it did the goverment’s opression as people are now more afraid of their lives then they were even before. For the government it was more a handover than a regime change. Thanks Trump for helping government of Iran I guess.

  • Denfa@lemmy.world
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    We can and should support the women of Iran by repeatedly bombing them and their families, destroying the cities they live in along with schools and hospitals, and possibly by obliterating the jail cell she’s being held in. I should probably add, this is sarcasm, because it also seems to be official US policy regarding the middle east in general.

  • tackleberry@thelemmy.club
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    According to the Iranian newspaper Khorasan, which confirmed the judicial proceedings, Amini told the court she had posted the remarks while hallucinating after taking psychedelic mushrooms with friends and her defence argued it was a “slip of the tongue”.

    The presiding judge rejected her defence, reportedly asking: “Why, in that same hallucinatory state, did you not insult other individuals or opponents of the regime, such as America and Israel?”

    Amini’s death sentence is not final and remains subject to appeal before Iran’s supreme court.

    Good news here is that the ruling remains subject to appeal.

  • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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    At least they’re not live streaming it, unlike some barbaric countries.

    • Godric@lemmy.world
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      I can excuse whipping and murdering people for social media posts, but I draw the line at livestreams

    • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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      The USA armed terrorists who with shotguns and Starlink connections and killed their leader during negotiations all for not becoming a slave for Israel

  • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
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    The Republic of Iran is evil incarnate to its own people, and everybody else.

    The USA should stay out of it. But, instead, we’ve been a very poor example, from choosing to found Israel after WW2 all the way to today. We are totally invested in Israel (our 51st state), and therefore, will always be in conflict with a good deal of the middle east.

    Jerusalem has been Jewish, then Roman, then Muslim, then Christian, then Muslim again, now Jewish. These Abrahamic fundamentalists will always fight for the Holy Land and kill each other for all time, as they always have.

    The Jews should have been accepted into the USA after WWII, in my opinion, with no nation building and no CIA-backed coups in Iran. As it is, there’s no end to it at this point, the fundies will take us with them and drag us all into hell.

  • BilboBargains@lemmy.world
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    In other news, Iran is at war with America and its stooges following a failed coup attempt by America and its stooges.