The passage of first step to ratify a bill seeking to toughen punishment for crimes ‎harming mental security in society, which was proposed by 20 lawmakers and ratified for ‎discussion with 180 votes in support, has been met with heavy protest of many including ‎the European Union over an Article prescribing death for establishing weblogs and sites ‎promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy.” ‎

On Saturday, only a day before Javier Solana’s meeting with Jalili over Iran’s nuclear ‎program, the European Union released a statement voicing worries over passage of the ‎bill: “[t]he bill makes a disproportionate link between the acts committed and the penalty ‎imposed and sets out to brutally restrict the exercise of freedom of expression.”‎

According to the published text of the bill, “armed robbery, rape, prostitution and ‎corruption, establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and ‎apostasy, human trafficking for sexual exploitation, maliciousness and kidnapping for ‎rape or ransom” are worthy of capital punishment, which is not reduced or commuted. ‎

Deputy Tehran’s prosecutor general, who was speaking in support of this bill, told ISNA ‎news agency that the bill is concerned with bloggers to “engage in creating corruption.” ‎Mahmoud Salarkia says, “Unfortunately, some websites have entered the individuals’ ‎private worlds in a very nasty manner and attract the youth toward moral corruption and ‎exploit them, and fortunately this issue has been addressed in this bill.” ‎

Salarkia, who is deputy to Tehran’s notorious prosecutor general, Saeed Mortazavi, ‎defended the proposal to convict this group of bloggers to capital punishment: ‎‎“Unfortunately, today our beliefs and religion are under attack with insults to the holy ‎prophet, peace be upon him, and his holy descendants. The Westerners are so shameless ‎in questioning religion that they even insult and attack God and promote infidelity. ‎Promotion of this infidelity and such insults to religion deserve that punishment: because ‎by doing so they question and destroy the face of religion, prophecy and his holy ‎descendants.”‎

Hamedan’s representative and member of Majlis leadership committee, Hamid Reza Haji ‎Babai, declared in an interview with Mehr news agency that the range of offences ‎carrying the death penalty has been extended for the first time to include bloggers and ‎organizers of Internet websites and any Internet user who is considered to be a promoter ‎of corruption, prostitution or infidelity is considered a ‘Mohareb’ (enemy of God) and ‎will face the death penalty.”‎