Iran Urged to Drop Death Sentence over Facebook Post

Iran was urged by human rights groups on Tuesday to drop the death sentence given to a man convicted of insulting the Prophet Mohammed in several Facebook posts.

Soheil Arabi was found guilty in August and the decision was upheld by Iran's Supreme Court last month.

The 30-year-old is said to have insulted the prophet and the 12 holy Imams of Shiite Islam -- both punishable by death in Iran.

However, New-York based Human Rights Watch in a statement condemned the judgment, saying Iran should "urgently revise its penal code to eliminate provisions that criminalize peaceful free expression".

"It is simply shocking that anyone should face the gallows simply because of Internet postings that are deemed to be crude, offensive or insulting," said Eric Goldstein, the group's Middle East director.

Arabi's lawyer told Human Rights Watch that the court did not accept that he had not written many of the Facebook posts and that he was merely sharing other people's views on the popular social network.

In a separate statement, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty denounced Arabi's imminent execution as "a clear violation" of Iran's obligations under the international covenant on civil and political rights.

Iran's judiciary spokesman on Monday said Arabi by his actions was convicted of a second charge of "sowing corruption on earth", a crime that carries no possibility of a pardon in the Islamic republic.

Iran is one of the world's biggest users of the death penalty. Last month the United Nations condemned a surge in the country's use of capital punishment, citing at least 850 executions in the past 15 months.