CNN
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An Iranian court has handed down the first death sentence linked to recent protests, convicting the unnamed individual of “hostility to God” and “spreading corruption on Earth”, state media reported.
This follows weeks of nationwide demonstrations sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in September.
Iran’s Revolutionary Court has handed down a verdict on a protester who allegedly set fire to a government building, state media reported.
They were found guilty of “disturbing public order and peace, community, collusion against national security, war and corruption on Earth, arson war and vandalism,” state news agency IRNA reported on Sunday.
Five other people who took part in the protest were sentenced to five to 10 years in prison on charges of “colluding to endanger national security and disturbing public order.”
The IRNA added that the decisions are preliminary and subject to appeal. The news agency did not name the protesters who were sentenced to death or provide details on when and where they committed the alleged crimes.
Iran has been rocked by anti-regime protests since September, the largest dissent demonstrations in recent years, sparking outrage over the death of Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who She was allegedly detained by morality police and allegedly did not wear her turban properly.
Iranian authorities have since brutally cracked down on protesters and charged at least 1,000 people in Tehran province for alleged involvement in the protests.
Security forces have killed at least 326 people since the protests began two months ago, according to the Norway-based Iranian human rights NGO.
In an update on Saturday’s death toll, the group said the figure included 43 children and 25 women, and said the figure it had released was an “absolute minimum”.
CNN could not independently verify the figure because Iran’s unofficial media, internet and protests have all been suppressed. The death toll varies among opposition groups, international human rights groups and journalists following the ongoing protests.
Despite threats of arrest – and harsher punishments for those involved – Iranian celebrities and athletes have come forward in support of anti-government protests in recent weeks.
On Friday, UN experts urged Iranian authorities to “stop prosecuting people sentenced to death for participating or suspected of taking part in peaceful demonstrations” and to “stop using the death penalty as a tool to suppress protests.”