Iranian spiritual leader sentenced for ‘insulting Islam’

LONDON: An Iranian court has sentenced the founder of a spiritual movement to five years in jail, his lawyer told ILNA news agency on Saturday, after he was accused of corrupting Muslims. Mohammad Ali Taheri, founder of Erfan Halgheh, which calls itself “Interuniversalism” in English, was arrested in 2011 and charged with “insulting Islamic sanctities” and “spreading corruption on earth”. Taheri was sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court in 2015, but acquitted on appeal in 2016. The court then re-imposed the death sentence in 2017, but the five-year sentence replaces it. His lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei, told the semi-official news agency he would lodge an appeal against the five-year sentence, but added: “We are hopeful that they would release Taheri this week as promised, since he has already served half of his sentence. “Taheri founded Erfan Halgheh after receiving what he claims were “spiritual inspirations” that empowered him to connect with a larger “cosmic consciousness”.