UN Human Rights Chief Urges Immediate Halt to Executions in Iran After Alarming Surge

August 9, 2024 – The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has called for an immediate halt to executions in Iran after a disturbing surge in state-sanctioned killings, with over 29 individuals executed in a single day.

In a statement issued on August 9, the UN Human Rights Chief expressed grave concerns about the lack of due process and fair trial standards in Iran’s capital punishment cases and called for an immediate moratorium on executions as a crucial first step toward abolishing the death penalty.

The Center for Human Rights in Iran has also called for an immediate cessation of all executions and the quashing of existing death sentences as executions in Iran are marred by severe violations of due process, often based on torture-extracted confessions and applied to crimes that do not meet international standards for capital punishment.

Find the complete UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’s press release below.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is extremely concerned about reports that, in the space of two days this week, Iranian authorities reportedly executed at least 29 people across the country. This represents an alarmingly high number of executions in such a short period of time. We have also verified that 38 people were executed in July.

This brings the reported number of executions to at least 345 this year, among them 15 women.

Those executed were primarily convicted of drug related offences or murder. Nearly half of the executions since the beginning of 2024 were for drug-related offences. Imposing the death penalty for offences not involving intentional killing is incompatible with international human rights norms and standards, as we have repeatedly emphasized.

We also have recurring concerns about the lack of due process and fair trial standards in many of these cases. Several executions were carried out with neither the prisoner’s family nor legal counsel being informed.

Minorities, including Kurds, Ahwazi Arabs and Baluch continue to be disproportionately affected by these executions.

It is time for Iran to join the growing consensus worldwide towards universal abolition, by imposing a moratorium on executions, with a view to ultimately abolishing the death penalty.