Blasphemy law in Iran

[3] On 9 June 2009, the singer Mohsen Namjoo was sentenced in absentia to a five-year jail term for ridiculing the Quran in a song.

[4] In March 2009, Iranian blogger Omid Mirsayafi died in prison while serving a 30-month sentence for propaganda against the state and criticism of religious leaders.

Shabestari's blasphemy was to say in a speech: "If in a society the three concepts of God, power, and authority are mixed up, a political-religious despotism will find strong roots ... and the people will suffer greatly.

[6] In October 2006, Ayatollah Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi, a senior Shia cleric who advocates the separation of religion and state, and a number of his followers were arrested and imprisoned after clashes with riot police.

[1] In 2002, Hashem Aghajari, a member of the Shia majority, a history professor, and a veteran who lost a leg in 1980-88 war against Iraq, gave a speech in which he called for political reforms.

[7][8] In 1999, Iran put on trial for “insulting the Prophet, his descendants, and the Ayatollah Khomeini,” and for other charges, Abdollah Nouri, the former Minister of the Interior in the Rafsanjani and Khatami cabinets.

On 14 February 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa which called for Muslims to kill Rushdie and all publishers of The Satanic Verses.

[11] Iranian journalist Mohammad Mosaed, who "reported extensively on government corruption, embezzlement, economic sanctions, labour and popular protests", was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison in 2021.

Former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, had endorsed the paper in a letter published in its first edition, saying, "Whenever the space for life tightens; whenever the land dries up and is deprived of water", people "lift their eyes to the sky to keep hope alive.