Iran hangings exceed 600 in 2023, highest in 8 years: rights group

PARIS: More than 600 people have been executed by Iran so far this year, already the highest figure in eight years with two months of 2023 still to go, a rights group said on Friday.

There were nine executions in a single day in a prison outside Tehran this week, while two people face execution after being convicted of adultery, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group said.

IHR and others have accused Iran of using capital punishment as a means to instill fear in the wake of women-led protests that swept the country for several months from September last year.

“The international community must react to more than 600 executions in 10 months -- that´s two state murders a day,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. “Silence is indirect consent to these crimes,” he added, noted that Iran became chair of the UN Human Rights Council Social Forum earlier this week.

IHR´s tally of 604 executions was already higher than the figure of 582 recorded in 2022, and the most since 2015 when it registered 972 executions. Activists have expressed dismay over the surging numbers of drug-related executions which have risen in recent years after previously falling due to amendments in Iran´s criminal code.

The latest executions on Wednesday involved nine men, among them an Afghan national, who were hanged in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj outside Tehran, mostly on murder charges, IHR said.

Meanwhile, it said a man and a woman, named as Leila Kholghi Sakachayi and Abolfazl Barat Vakili, had been sentenced to death by a Tehran court in August on adultery charges.