Iran executed at least 834 people in 2023, an “alarming” increase of 43% compared to 2022 and the highest number since 2015, according to the annual report by NGOs Iran Human Rights and Ensemble Against the Death Penalty .
“The number of executions literally exploded in 2023,” underlines this 16th NGO report on the death penalty in Iran.
“This is the second time in 20 years that the number of executions has exceeded the threshold of 800 per year”, argue these organizations which denounce a “terrible” number.
Executions in Iran, one of the countries that executes the most alongside China and Saudi Arabia, are carried out by hanging.
In 2023, at least 22 women were executed in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the highest number in the last ten years, these NGOs report.
In 2015, the Iranian authorities carried out the execution of 972 people, recall Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO), based in Norway, and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), based in Paris.
In this 100-page report, these NGOs accuse Iran of using the death penalty as a “tool of political repression” after the vast protest movement in this country.
This movement was triggered by the death in September 2022 of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, three days after being arrested by the moral police for non-compliance with the strict dress code in Iran. Her family and human rights activists say she was beaten to death, a claim Iranian officials deny.
The demonstrations, which had shaken the regime of the Islamic Republic for several weeks, have now calmed down in the face of repression which led to the death of hundreds of people according to rights defense associations, and thousands of arrests according to the UN.
83 people executed in 2024
“Instilling fear in society is the only way for the regime to cling to power, and the death penalty is its most important instrument,” denounces Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of IHRNGO, in a press release.
During a press conference on Tuesday in Paris, the director of ECPM, Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan, castigated “an instrumentalization of the death penalty by the regime to fight against all protests”.
The report does not include in its statistics the “at least 551 people killed during protests or other extrajudicial executions inside and outside prisons,” notes the press release.
According to these NGOs, at least eight demonstrators are among those executed in 2023, six of whom were arrested in the context of the demonstrations and sentenced.
According to the report, at least 471 people (56% of total executions) were executed in 2023 for drug-related cases and at least 282 people (34% of total executions) were executed for murder.
Iran applies Sharia law (Islamic law), which provides for the death penalty for crimes such as drug trafficking, rape or murder.
The country, which has one of the highest rates of opioid users in the world, is one of the main routes for drugs from neighboring Afghanistan to Europe and the Middle East.
“The spectacular escalation in the number of drug-related executions in 2023 is particularly worrying,” say the NGOs, stressing that those executed “belong to the most marginalized communities in society, and to ethnic minorities.”
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam says he is very concerned about “the current lack of strong reaction at the international level” to these executions, while the international community is focused on the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas. This lack of reaction “sends a bad signal to the Iranian authorities,” he believes.
“Unfortunately, this international indignation is missing, particularly in the second half of 2023,” added Mr. Amiry-Moghaddam during the press briefing on Tuesday. “As long as the political cost of these executions is not high, their number increases,” he lamented.
So far in 2024, at least 83 people have been executed in Iran, according to IHRNGO.