Corpun file 7397 at www.corpun.com

Associated Press, 16 February 2001

Report: Iran Flogs Three

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Two brothers and their cousin have been publicly flogged in Tehran after a court convicted them of drinking alcohol and having illicit sex, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

It said the three men were flogged near Vanaq Square in northern Tehran on Thursday. It identified the brothers by their first names only, Mohammad and Majid but gave the full name of the cousin, Ismail Rahimi.

Mohammad received 179 lashes while Majid and Rahimi got 180 each, according to IRNA's report late Thursday. The agency gave no other details.

Iran has been ruled by Muslim clergymen since the 1979 Islamic revolution ousted the monarchy. Flogging is in line with Islamic laws prohibiting drinking alcohol and extramarital sex.

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[The following picture, from an unidentified secondary source quoting the "Daily Iran" (sic), presumably in fact the Iran Daily (an English-language paper in Tehran), evidently illustrates the event reported above, though with a discrepancy over the number of strokes administered in one of the three cases:]