Court sentences singer to death over blasphemy

An Iranian court has sentenced popular singer Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Tataloo, to death on appeal after he was convicted of blasphemy.

“The Supreme Court accepted the prosecutor’s objection” to a previous five-year jail term on offences including blasphemy, reformist newspaper Etemad reported online.

It said “the case was reopened, and this time the defendant was sentenced to death for insulting the prophet”, referring to Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

The report added that the verdict was not final and can still be appealed.

The 37-year-old underground musician had been living in Istanbul since 2018 before Turkish police handed him over to Iran in December 2023.

He has been in detention in Iran since then.

Tataloo had also been sentenced to 10 years for promoting “prostitution” and in other cases was charged with disseminating “propaganda” against the Islamic republic and publishing “obscene content”.

The heavily tattooed singer, known for combining rap, pop and R&B, was previously courted by conservative politicians as a way of reaching out to young, liberal-minded Iranians.

Tataloo even held an awkward televised meeting in 2017 with ultra-conservative Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who later died in a helicopter crash.

In 2015, Tataloo published a song in support of Iran’s nuclear programme that later unravelled in 2018 during the first US presidency of Donald Trump.