IRAN: ONE PERSON EXECUTED, PAIR CONDEMNED TO DEATH

January 30, 2011: one person was hanged in Tehran for drug trafficking, Iran’s prosecutor general, and spokesman of the Iranian judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i said in a press conference.
On the same day, Prosecutor general Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told the Islamic republic's official IRNA news agency that two administrators of porn sites had been convicted and would be executed after the supreme court confirms the sentences. The two men have not been named, and court released no further details about their alleged offences.
It is not the first time the Islamic Republic has handed down a death sentence to someone suspected of dealing in dodgy web sites.
In December 2010, an Iranian-born Canadian was sentenced to death by the Tehran regime for allegedly designing an adult website, the AFP news agency reported, quoting family members. Freelance website developer and programmer Saeed Malekpour, 35, was arrested in 2008 when he went to Iran visit his sick father, and subsequently convicted of "designing and moderating adult content websites", "agitation against the regime" and "insulting the sanctity of Islam," an online group campaigning for his release said. Canada expressed concern over the reported death sentence handed down to the Iranian-born Canadian resident. (Sources: AFP, IHR, 30/01/2011)