Iran Is on ‘Execution Spree,’ Human Rights Groups Say

Iran is on an “execution spree,” and conducted 251 hangings this year through June, according to human rights organizations. “If executions continue at this horrifying pace, they will soon surpass the total of 314 executions recorded for the whole of 2021,” according to a statement issued by the Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran and London-based Amnesty International. The real number of executions is likely higher since the authorities have surrounded with secrecy the actual number of death sentences imposed and carried out. Some 146 of the people executed in 2022 were convicted of murder and at least 86 other people were executed for drug-related offenses. Iran Human Rights, another NGO, reported that Iran on Saturday carried out its first public execution in two years. Mass executions have been carried out in prisons across Iran, with up to a dozen people executed at a time, according to the groups. Under Iranian law, the death penalty applies to offenses ranging from financial crimes and rape to armed robbery. In addition, according to Amnesty, activities protected by international human rights law such as consensual same-sex sexual conduct, extramarital sexual relations, and speech deemed “insulting to the Prophet of Islam” as well as vaguely worded offenses such as “enmity against God” and “spreading corruption on earth” are also punishable by death.