Iran executed nearly 100 people in January and February: Amnesty
- Iran carrying out executions on a ‘frightening scale’, have increased significantly compared to 2022
- Death sentences in Iran are usually carried out by hanging, sometimes from a construction crane in public
Iranian authorities executed at least 94 people in January and February alone, human rights organisation Amnesty International said.
Amnesty International and Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, an Iranian human rights organisation based in the US, said that authorities in Iran have executed at least one Ahwazi Arab, 14 Kurds and 13 Baluchis following what they characterised as “grossly unfair trials”, sentencing at least a dozen others to death since the start of the year.
According to research by the organisations, the number of executions has increased significantly compared to the previous year. They also cited sources as reporting instances of “horrific sexual violence and other torture allegations”.
“The Iranian authorities are carrying out executions on a frightening scale,” Abdorrahman Boroumand Center executive director Roya Boroumand said.
“Their actions amount to an assault on the right to life and a shameless attempt not only to further oppress ethnic minorities but to spread fear that dissent will be met with brute force, either in the streets or in the gallows.”
“It is harrowing that executions routinely occur amid the systematic use of torture-tainted ‘confessions’ to convict defendants in grossly unfair trials,” said Amnesty’s Diana Eltahawy, as she urged “all states to exercise universal jurisdiction over all Iranian officials reasonably suspected of criminal responsibility for crimes under international law and other grave violations of human rights”.
Human rights activists have been highly critical of the use of the death penalty in Iran for many years, saying it can be used as a means of repression and after unfair trials.
Official figures on executions are not known. According to Amnesty International, at least 250 people were executed in Iran in the first half of 2022, mainly for drug offences.
Iran also executed four participants in the recent wave of protests.
Death sentences in Iran are usually carried out by hanging. Some people have been hanged from a crane in public rather than in prison.
Typically, those condemned are alive as the crane lifts them off their feet, hanging by a rope and struggling to breathe before they asphyxiate or their neck breaks.
Additional reporting by Associated Press