An Iranian newspaper journalist has been executed for allegedly associating with a militant group and threatening national security, officials in Iran said Tuesday, according to a report in the Guardian. Yaghoob Mirnehad, a reporter for the Tehran-based Mardomsalari newspaper, was executed along with another man on Monday, a spokesman for the judiciary said.
Some background:
Mirnehad, who was based in the far south-east of the country around 1,000 miles from Tehran, had been sentenced to death in February. He was convicted of having links to Jundallah, an armed Sunni Muslim group operating in Balochistan on the Iran-Pakistan border. Authorities claimed he had set up a group to "cooperate" with Jundallah.
Mirnehad was arrested in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, in May 2007. He was also accused of crimes against national security.
The judiciary spokesman said Mirnehad's conviction was not related to his work as a journalist, but gave no further details.
Jundallah means army of God. The group – which the Iranian government says is linked to al-Qaida – claims to have killed several hundred Iranian soldiers. Jundallah says it is fighting against the country's Shia government for the rights of Iranian Sunnis. It is associated with the country's ethnic Balochi minority, of which Mirnehad was a member.
