Iranian authorities reportedly executed 901 people last year, including about 40 in one week in December, the United Nations rights chief said on Tuesday.
“It is deeply disturbing that year after year we see a rise again in the number of people who are subjected to the death penalty in Iran,” said Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. This compares with at least 853 people executed in Iran in 2023.
“It is high time for Iran to stem this rising tide of executions,” Turk said in a statement.
Iran uses the death penalty for major crimes including murder, drug trafficking, rape and sexual assault.
Activists are increasingly concerned about the rise in hangings in Iran.
The Islamic Republic executes more people annually than any other nation except China, for which there are no reliable figures, according to rights groups including Amnesty International.
They accuse the authorities under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of use of the death penalty as a tool for instilling fear in the entire society, especially after 2022-2023. protests across the country.
The UN rights office said the majority of executions last year were for drug-related offences, but said “dissidents and people linked to the 2022 protests were also executed.”
“There has also been an increase in the number of women executed,” the office said.
The IHR said in a report released on Monday that at least 31 women were executed in Iran in 2024.
Iran does not release official figures on executions, but UN rights office spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters the team had gathered figures from a number of different reliable human rights organizations monitoring the situation, including HRANA, Hengaw and Norway-based Iran Human Rights .
“We are confident in that number,” she said.
The highest number of executions in Iran in recent decades was recorded in 2015, when at least 972 people were killed.
After that, the numbers fell after Iran’s anti-narcotics law was reformed in 2017, but Throssell warned that “from 2022, the numbers have skyrocketed.”
“Clearly the number for 2024 is alarmingly, shockingly high,” Throssell said.
Turk emphasized that his office opposes “the death penalty under all circumstances.”
“It is incompatible with the fundamental right to life and increases the unacceptable risk of innocent people being executed,” he said. “And, to be clear, it can never be imposed for conduct that is protected by international human rights law.”
The UN human rights chief called on the Iranian authorities to stop all further executions and put a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with the aim of its eventual abolition.
About 170 countries have either abolished the death penalty or introduced a moratorium on its application.
