An Iranian courtroom has reportedly sentenced tattooed pop star Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, generally known as Tataloo, to dying for blasphemy. The 37-year-old singer has been in detention in Iran since December 2023 after being extradited from Turkey.
A number of Iranian media sources, together with the Iranian newspapers Etemad and Jame Jam, reported on Sunday that Tataloo was sentenced to dying by Iran’s Supreme Court docket after being discovered responsible of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Etemad reported that Tataloo was serving a five-year jail time period for varied offenses, together with blasphemy, however his case was reopened on the request of the prosecutor. He obtained a dying sentence on retrial.
The report famous that the decision was not ultimate and Tataloo might nonetheless attraction. Iranian judiciary officers additionally stated Sunday {that a} ultimate verdict on the case had not but been issued.
The musician, identified for mixing rap, pop, and R&B types, beforehand confronted a 10-year sentence for selling “prostitution” and was charged with anti-regime propaganda and publishing “obscene content material.”
Tataloo has not all the time been at odds with the Iranian regime. In 2015, he launched a tune supporting Iran’s nuclear program, which fell aside after the Trump authorities later withdrew from the deal. In 2017 Tataloo held a televised assembly with the ultra-conservative Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who later died in a helicopter crash. Earlier than his extradition, Tataloo had been dwelling in Istanbul since 2018.
The case comes towards a backdrop of accelerating persecution in Iran, together with judicial executions. The UN reported some 901 executions in 2024 — the best quantity in 9 years. The uncertainty surrounding Tataloo’s verdict coincided with a capturing at Iran’s Supreme Court docket in Tehran on Saturday that resulted within the deaths of two judges who specialised in nationwide safety instances.
