The variety of executions in Iran climbed to its highest since 2015 with not less than 834 circumstances final yr, two rights teams claimed Tuesday.
The variety of executions that Iran has carried out by hanging in recent times, was up some 43% on 2022.
It marked solely the second time in 20 years that over 800 executions have been recorded in a yr, after 972 executions in 2015, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty stated within the joint report.
The teams accused Iran of utilizing the dying penalty to unfold worry all through society within the wake of the protests sparked by the September 2022 dying in police custody of Mahsa Amini that shook the authorities.
“Instilling societal fear is the regime’s only way to hold on to power, and the death penalty is its most important instrument,” stated IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam within the report, which described the determine of 834 as a “staggering total.”
Iran has executed 9 males in circumstances linked to assaults on safety forces throughout the 2022 protests – two in 2022, six in 2023 and one up to now in 2024 – in accordance with the rights teams.
But executions have been stepped up on different fees, notably in drug-related circumstances, which had till latest years seen a fall.
“Of particular concern is the dramatic escalation in the number of drug-related executions in 2023, which rose to 471 people, more than 18 times higher than the figures recorded in 2020,” stated the report.
Members of ethnic minorities, notably the Sunni Baluch from the southeast of Iran, are “grossly overrepresented amongst those executed” on drug-related fees, it stated.
At least 167 members of the Baluch minority have been executed in whole, accounting for 20% of the full executions in 2023, despite the fact that the minority accounts for less than round 5 % of Iran’s inhabitants.
‘Wrong sign’
ECPM Director Raphael Chenuil-Hazan stated the “lack of reaction” by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) was sending “the wrong signal to the Iranian authorities.”
Most hangings in Iran are carried out inside the confines of jail however the report stated that in 2023 the variety of hangings carried out in public in Iran tripled from 2022, with seven folks hanged in public areas.
At least 22 ladies have been executed, marking the best quantity previously decade, the report stated.
Fifteen of them have been hanged on homicide fees and NGOs have lengthy warned that girls who kill an abusive accomplice or relative danger being hanged.
In 2023, solely 15% of the recorded executions have been introduced by official Iranian media, with IHR confirming the opposite executions with its personal sources.
Amiry-Moghaddam expressed concern {that a} lack of worldwide outrage on the executions, specifically with consideration targeted on the Gaza conflict between Israel and Hamas, was solely encouraging the Islamic Republic to hold out extra hangings.
“The inconsistency in the international community’s reaction to the executions in Iran is unfortunate and sends the wrong signal to the authorities,” he stated.
Source: www.dailysabah.com