Iran executed nearly 1,500 since 2022 protests began – rights group

At least 1,425 people have been executed in Iran since Mahsa Amini’s death in custody sparked a nationwide protest movement in September 2022, a new report by Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organization said.

Nearly twice as many executions were carried out in the two years following the outbreak of the protests compared to the same period before, according to the Monday report.

The most significant increase was for alleged drug-related crimes, the report added, for which capital punishment jumped 163% from 302 cases to 796.

“The death penalty is the Islamic Republic’s most crucial tool for instilling fear in society, aiming to stifle dissent and preventing future protests," IHR Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam was quoted as saying.

"Drug-related offenders, often denied fair trials by Revolutionary Courts, are the regime’s expendable victims in this relentless cycle of repression."

Iran conducted the most executions of any country in the world besides China last year, Amnesty International said in a report in May, adding that nearly 75% of all executions worldwide in 2023 outside China were in Iran.

Foreign ministers from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand condemned the uptick in death sentences in a joint statement on Monday.

“The recent surge in executions that have largely occurred without fair trials has been shocking, and we urge the Iranian government to cease its human rights violations now.”

Other harsh sentences like flogging have also been handed down in greater numbers according to another rights group.

Over 100 sentences of flogging have been issued in relation to the protests, the U.S.-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Iran's Human Rights said in a report on Monday, with at least two being conducted on women.

"These inhumane sentences are being carried out despite Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - an agreement that Iran has both accepted and ratified -which states, 'No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment'," the rights group said in a statement.