Iranian blogger sentenced to death for insulting supreme leader

A 33-year-old Iranian blogger has been sentenced to death for insulting the supreme leader — the latest civilian targeted by the regime.Soda Ebrahimi Shamsabadi was charged with “corruption on earth,” over accusations she “insulted the supreme leader,” did “media and propaganda activities against national security” and worked “on behalf of hostile governments.” She is also being punished for taking a photograph of a site where a missile struck and sending it to a Persian-language media outlet outside Iran, according to Iran International.“We saw how much they killed us,” she wrote in January in the days after the country-wide protests where the regime killed more than 30,000 people by some estimates.“So many crimes and killings have happened that there are a lot of photos, videos, and documents of it, and a lot of eyewitnesses.

More than war, the blood of our mothers and fathers smells of revenge.”In her last Instagram post, on Feb.23, she appeared to already know her fate.“If one day I leave this world, just know one thing — I chose the path I believed in,” she wrote to her 10,000 followers over an image of a black background, alongside a dove and red rose, with the caption “either I die, or these bastards.”Shamsabadi, who was raised in Tehran and lived in Bandar Abbas, has been held since March in Bandar Abbas Prison, where she spent 20 days in solitary confinement.The case comes amid a rapidly rising number of death sentences aimed to “instill fear among the population and suppress dissent,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement.

At least 29 people arrested in the January protests have been executed since March, according to Norway-based Iran Human Rights.A staggering 950 executions have been documented in Iran so far this year, according to the US-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center....