Two rights groups revealed on Thursday that Iran is using death penalty as an “execution machine” aimed at spreading fear as protests shook the country in 2022.
According to Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and France's Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), Iran hanged 75 percent more people in 2022 that the previous years and it executed at least 582 people last year, the highest figure since 2015.
In a joint report published Thursday, the two organizations said that the death penalty was used “once again as an essential tool of intimidation and repression by the Iranian regime in order to maintain the stability of its power.”
HR director Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam said, “In order to spread fear among the demonstrating population and youth, the authorities have intensified executions of prisoners sentenced for non-political reasons.”
He noted that in order to stop the killing machine used by the Iranian regime, the international community and civil society must actively show their opposition whenever someone is executed in the country.
Amiry Moghaddam said that while the international reaction was keeping protest-related executions in check, Iran was pressing ahead with executions on other charges to deter people from protesting.
Last year was marked by the eruption in September of nationwide protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old ethnic Kurd who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress rules for women.
The authorities responded with a crackdown that saw four men hanged in protest-related cases, executions that prompted an international outcry.
The report said that after the four men were executed on protest-related charges, 100 more protesters risk execution after being sentenced to death or charged with capital offences.
The figure of at least 582 executions was the highest for Iran since 2015 and exceeding even 2015 when, according to the rights groups, 972 people were put to death in Iran.
“We fear the number of executions will dramatically increase in 2023 if the international community does not react more,” Amiry Moghaddam told AFP.
“Every execution in Iran is political, regardless of the charges,” he added, describing those executed on drug or murder charges as the “low cost victims” of Iran's “killing machine.”
Amiry Moghaddam also said that with over 150 executions in the first three months of this year alone, the overall total for 2023 risked being the highest in some two decades, exceeding even 2015.
The report confirmed that hundreds of detainees are currently sentenced to death or are being tried on charges that carry the death penalty.
A fall in the number of drug-related executions -- driven by 2017 amendments to the anti-narcotics law -- had been behind a drop in the overall number of executions in Iran up to 2021.
More than half of those executed after the start of the protests, and 44 percent of the 582 executions recorded in 2022, were on drug-related charges.
This was more than double the number in 2021, and 10 times higher than the number of drug-related executions in 2020, it said.
The rights groups lamented what they said was a lack of reaction from the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) and its donor states to this "dramatic surge".
Meanwhile, ECPM director Raphael Chenuil-Hazan said that “lack of reaction by the UNODC and donor countries to the reversal of these reforms (of 2017) sends the wrong signal to the Iranian authorities.”
The report said members of the mainly Sunni Muslim Baluch minority accounted for 30 percent of executions nationwide, even though they account for just two to six percent of Iran's population.
The numbers of ethnic Kurds and Arabs executed were also disproportionate, especially for drug crimes, the report said.
“The death penalty is part of the systematic discrimination and extensive repression ethnic minorities of Iran are subjected to,” it said.
The most executions -- 288, or 49 percent -- were for murder, the highest in more than 15 years.
Two people, including protester Majidreza Rahnavard, were hanged in public, the report said. At least three juvenile offenders were among those executed while at least 16 women were hanged.
Iran's penal code allows execution by methods that include firing squad, stoning and even crucifixion but in recent years all executions have been carried out by hanging.
Chenuil-Hazan said Iran executes more people annually than any nation other than China -- for which no accurate data is available -- and more in proportion to its population than any nation in the world.
“Iran has always used the death penalty since 1979 (the Islamic revolution) in a systematic and significant way,” he said.
Tehran has rejected a report by Javaid Rehman, the council's rapporteur on Iran. It bans Rehman from visiting the country.
At a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council last month, Ali Bahraini, Iran’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations Office in Geneva, slammed false reports prepared on the human rights situation in Iran, including by Rehman.
The Iranian ambassador said Rehman’s allegations were imaginary and Iran was being singled out and targeted in the council.
“They try to portray their imaginations as the reality of the situation in Iran,” he said.
