Najmeh Amini, a 23-year-old accounting student, has been sentenced to death in Iran for ‘insulting the prophet’ over a post on social media. Humanists UK has condemned the sentence and called for it to be overturned. Amini was arrested during the nationwide protests in January, which the Iranian authorities put down with a deadly crackdown. In a separate case, she was also sentenced to 12 years, six months, and one day in prison on charges including acting against national security and spreading propaganda against the state. Under Iran’s penal code, insulting the Prophet Muhammad is punishable by death. According to Iran Human Rights, nearly 600 people have been executed in the country so far this year. Death sentences for blasphemy are rarer. The last known executions for blasphemy took place in May 2023, when Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli-Zare were hanged over their activity on social media. The news comes a week after Anojan Sivarasa, a 24-year-old Sri Lankan migrant worker, was sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia over a comment on Facebook. Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court has today set aside the death sentence. However, it is not clear if there will be further legal proceedings or whether Sivarasa will remain in detention, and for how long. Humanists UK has long raised Iran’s use of the death penalty for blasphemy and apostasy at the UN, and in 2022 urged the UN Human Rights Council to keep up the pressure on Iran to abolish it. Humanists UK is a founding member
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