Iran: Kurdish prisoner of conscience, 100 lashes for blasphemy

Iran: Kurdish prisoner of conscience, 100 lashes for blasphemy

Published by on August 5, 2019

Peyman Mirzazadeh, a Kurdish singer held at Urmia Prison in north-western Iran, went on hunger strike on 29 July, 2019 in protest to being sentenced to two years of prison and 100 lashes. His flogging sentence was carried out on 28 July and left him in agonizing pain with a severely swollen back and legs.
Peyman Mirzazadeh started his hunger strike after he was flogged with 100 lashes in the Branch 4 of the Law Enforcement Office.

The Branch number 110 of Urmia Public Court sentenced him to two years of prison and 80 lashes for “blasphemy” and another 20 lashes for “drinking alcohol”.

Peyman Mirzazadeh was previously sentenced to two years of prison for “cooperating with a dissident group”.

In 2017, Peyman Mirzazadeh was arrested by security forces on charges of “spreading propaganda against the state” by singing songs in support of a dissident group. He was sentenced to six months of prison and was denied the right to a lawyer.

Iran practices flogging and other internationally banned corporal punishments including amputation, stoning, and blinding.

Under Iran’s criminal laws, more than 100 offenses are punishable by flogging. Iranian courts have also sentenced some journalists or civil rights activists to be flogged over their peaceful work.

Most recently a court in the city of Shahreza, in Isfahan Province, central Iran, condemned teachers’ rights activist to three years in prison and 74 lashes.


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