Mass Executions Underway as Islamic Republic Escalates Its Killing Spree
33 Executed in Last 24 hours, All Were Marked by Severe Violations of International Law
Global Community Must Forcefully Warn Iran to Stop These Unlawful Hangings
August 7, 2024—The Islamic Republic, already one of the world’s leading executioners, is significantly ramping up its execution of prisoners, in a deeply disturbing surge in hangings that have seen at least 33 individuals unlawfully executed in the last 24 hours.
Since August 6, 29 men, including two Afghan nationals and a member of the Baluch minority, were reportedly executed for murder, drug-related and rape charges in Karaj, Alborz province—26 in Qezel Hesar Prison and three in the city’s Central Prison. In addition, one man was executed in Sabzevar, Khorasan Razavi province, and three men were executed in Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan province. These are only the known executions; there are often additional executions that take place without public knowledge.
“These executions by the Islamic Republic are nothing less than state-sanctioned murder—and this is murder on an increasingly mass scale,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
“The Islamic Republic is demonstrating a complete disregard for life and the rule of law, and clearly shrugging off the response of the international community,” Ghaemi said.
“All relevant UN bodies and governments worldwide must disabuse the Iranian authorities of the notion that their heinous killings can take place without severe diplomatic and economic consequences—or these hangings will only accelerate,” Ghaemi added.
CHRI calls for an immediate halt to all executions in Iran and the quashing of all existing death sentences, given the profound violations that characterize death penalty cases in Iran.
Executions in Iran deeply violate numerous international laws and standards—they are carried out without any semblance of due process and for crimes that do not meet international thresholds for capital punishment, and the convictions are routinely based on “confessions” extracted under torture.
Since the 2023-2023 “Women, Life, Freedom” protests that swept Iran, executions are now increasingly being used to target protesters and other critics of the state in blatantly unlawful and manufactured political prosecutions.
Just yesterday, on August 6, Reza Rasaei, a 34-year-old who supported his elderly mother and family through beekeeping, and member of the Kurdish and Yaresan minority communities, was executed in connection to the 2022 protests, without providing prior notice to him, his family or his lawyer, Amnesty International reported.
Minorities are disproportionally targeted for the death penalty and executed in Iran, especially the Kurdish and Baluchi minority communities.
There has been a growing outcry in Iran against these surging executions, and this has included a large group of women political prisoners, who, at great risk to themselves, have been protesting these executions from behind their bars.
To protest the execution of Reza Rasaei, prisoners in Evin Prison’s Women’s Ward chanted “Death to the dictator” and “Death to the execution regime” while breaking the door of the guard office, and clashing with the security guards who came to suppress the prisoners. Phone calls and visitations to prisoners in the ward have been cut off, Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi reported on August 7.
In an audio file published on the Instagram page of imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate Narges Mohammadi on August 4, at least 37 women political prisoners can be heard chanting against the government and the executions during an overnight sit-in in Tehran’s Evin prison. For their protest, they were denied visitation rights.
The women’s protest at Evin was part of the “No Execution Tuesdays” campaign that has been held every Tuesday since January 2024, in which prisoners in at least 18 prisons across Iran have been holding weekly hunger strikes to protest executions in Iran.
*Editor’s note: This article was corrected on August 9, 2024, to reflect the fact that three of these individuals were executed on August 3, 2024. Thus, 33 executions took place over that 24-hour period.
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