TEHRAN, Iran – The Iranian judiciary confirmed that two journalist from the country's Kurdish minority have been sentenced to death, a rare verdict against media people here, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Tuesday.
"Adnan Hassanpour and Hiva Boutimar have been sentenced to execution on the charge of Moharebeh," the agency quoted Ali Reza Jamshidi, spokesman of judiciary, as saying. Moharebeh, which literally means "fighting" in classical Arabic, is used in Iran's Sharia law to describe a major crime against the religion and the Islamic state.
The official new agency did not specify what crime the two Kurdish journalists were precisely accused of.
The journalists were also seen as activists in Sanandaj, the capital of the western Iranian province of Kurdistan, bordering Iraq.
They have been detained after Kurds protested in Sanandaj in 2005.
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