Five prisoners were sentenced to public lashing on December 25, 2019. They were sentenced to 370 lashes combined among other sentences by the Branch 4 of the Tehran’s Financial Crimes Court. The five convicts are identified as following: Yousef Jannat Makan, Kourosh Mar, Mohammad Reza Okhovat Fard, Ali Zarnani, and Azim Ali Ashrafi Piyaman. They were tried in two court sessions in December 2019 resided by judge Salavati. According to the verdict, each of the convicts is sentenced to 74 lashed in public among other sentences.
In another case, on December 24, a young man was sentenced to lashes for extramarital relationships in Tehran. In addition, on December 19th, a 29-year-old Afghan citizen was sentenced to 149 lashes among other sentences in Tehran. On the same day but in a separate case, another young man was sentenced to 99 lashes among other sentences on the charge of rape in Tehran.
The Iranian judicial system is one of the few in the world that still uses humiliating punishments while the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has clearly forbidden inhuman punishments such as lashing and execution.