Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, has been in prison since December 2023, when he was handed over by the Turkish police to the Persian authorities
The Iranian regime is continuing its campaign of executions. A Persian court sentenced popular singer to death Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, on appeal after being found guilty of blasphemy, local media reported on Sunday.
“The Supreme Court accepted the prosecutor’s objection” to a previous five-year prison sentence for crimes including blasphemy, the online edition of the reformist newspaper reported. Advances.
The media explained that “the case was reopened, and This time the accused was sentenced to death for insulting the prophet.”, in reference to the prophet Muhammad of Islam.
The report added that the ruling was not final and could still be appealed.
The 37-year-old underground musician had been living in Istanbul since 2018, before Turkish police handed him over to Iran in December 2023.
He has been detained in Iran ever since.
Tataloo was also sentenced to 10 years in prison for promoting “prostitution” and, in other cases, was accused of spreading “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic and publishing “obscene content.”
The singer, known for combining rap, pop and R&B and with numerous tattoos, had previously been courted by conservative politicians as a way to reach out to liberal-minded Iranian youth.
In 2017, Tataloo even held an awkward televised meeting with Iran’s ultra-conservative president Ebrahim raisi, who later died in a helicopter accident.
In 2015, Tataloo released a song in support of Iran’s nuclear program, which later fell apart in 2018 during Donald Trump’s first US presidency.
Executions, a state policy in Iran
Earlier this year, the UN human rights chief reported that more than 900 people were executed in Iran last year, including around 40 in a single week in December.
“It is deeply disturbing that we are once again seeing an increase in the number of people facing the death penalty in Iran year after year,” said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, adding that at least 901 people were executed by 2024. “It is time for Iran stop this rising tide of executions.”
The regime of Iran uses capital punishment for serious crimes, including murder, drug trafficking, rape and sexual assault.
The Islamic Republic executes more people per year than any other nation except China, for which there are no reliable figures available, according to human rights groups such as Amnesty International.
Activists are increasingly alarmed by the rise in hangings in Iran.
They accuse the authorities under the supreme leadership of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of using capital punishment as a tool to instill fear throughout society, particularly in the wake of the nationwide protests of 2022-2023.
The human rights office of the ONU He said most of last year’s executions were for drug-related offenses, but also noted that “Dissidents and people linked to the 2022 protests were also executed.”
“There was also an increase in the number of women executed,” he said.
Volker Turk has insisted that the ONU opposes the death penalty “in all circumstances” because this type of practice “is incompatible with the fundamental right to life” and there is “an unacceptable risk of executing innocent people.”
Source » aurora-israel