“Iran executes Yousef Mehrdad and Sadrollah Fazeli Zare for ‘apostasy’: a grotesque assault on human rights.”

🧵Today’s execution of Yousef Mehrdad & Sadrollah Fazeli Zare for “apostasy” marks a shocking new low for Iran’s authorities & only furthers Iran’s pariah status. They were hanged solely for social media posts in a grotesque assault on the rights to life & freedom of religion. 1/ pic.twitter.com/T6eVmKqFaC

— Amnesty Iran (@AmnestyIran) May 8, 2023

Sadrolla Fazeli Zare and Yusef Mehrdad, who were convicted of “insulting the Prophet Muhammad and burning the Koran”, were hanged on Monday morning, the judiciary website Mizan said.

In March 2021, one of the defendants admitted at a court hearing that he had admitted to committing offensive actions in his social media profile.

The men were also accused of running social media channels and groups that promoted atheism and insulted the sanctities of Islam, Mizan said.

In terms of annual executions, Iran ranks second in the world after China.

At least 582 people were executed in Iran last year. This is the largest number of people executed since 2015 and much more than the 333 executions registered in 2021.