Iranian
Journalist Could Face Death Penalty for Allegedly “Insulting” Shia Prophet
بازداشت
پویان خوشحال به اتهام توهین به مقدسات به دلیل استفاده از واژه «درگذشت» به جای
«شهادت»
OCTOBER 31, 2018
Pouyan
Khoshhal Fired From Reformist Ebtekar Newspaper
Iranian
journalist Pouyan Khoshhal has been arrested in Tehran and charged with a crime
that could carry the death penalty for using the word “demise” instead of
“martyrdom” while referring to
a revered figure of Shia Islam.
He
was also fired from the reformist Ebtekar newspaper, which issued an apology
instead of defending the journalist.
Khoshhal
was taken into custody on October 25, 2018, while waiting to board an
international flight at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport and
charged with “insulting the divinity of Imam Hossein and other members of the
prophet’s blessed household,” the Iranian judiciary’s official news agency
Mizan reported.
According
to Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, those convicted of insulting Imam Hossein, a
grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, could be issued the death penalty.
Article
262 states, “Anyone who swears at or commits qazf against the Great Prophet [of
Islam] (peace be upon him) or any of the Great Prophets, shall be considered as
Sāb ul-nabi [a person who swears at the prophet], and shall be sentenced to the
death penalty.”
On
October 21, Ebtekar had published a report by Khoshhal, “Disease Awaits Careless
Pilgrims,” about the medical
issues faced by the millions of Iranians who take a pilgrimage to Iman
Hossein’s shrine in Karbala, Iraq annually. Last year, 2,320,000 Iranians made
the trip, according to state media reports.
“Every
year, pilgrims travel to the city of Karbala to mark the 40th day of the
anniversary of Imam Hossein’s demise,” wrote Khoshhal.
