‘Alarming rise’ in executions for drugs after election

Rate accelerates under hardline president with more women also hanged

Executions in Iran rose by 25 per cent last year, a report by two leading NGOs said yesterday, expressing alarm over a surge in the numbers executed for drug offences and also the hanging of at least 17 women.

The rate of executions also accelerated after the June election of hardline former judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi to the presidency, said the report by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and France’s Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM).

The report urged world powers negotiating with Iran on its nuclear programme to put capital punishment in the Islamic republic – which executes more people annually than any country other than China – at the centre of the talks.

At least 333 people were executed last year, a 25 per cent increase compared to 267 in 2020, said the report, based on official media and sources inside Iran.

At least 126 executions were for drug charges, five times higher than 2020’s figure of 25.

This marked a major reversal of a trend of a decline in drugrelated executions since Iran in 2017 adopted amendments to its anti-narcotics law in the face of international pressure.

Over 80 per cent of executions were not officially announced, including all those for drugrelated offences, it said.

The report “reveals an increase in the number of executions, an alarming rise in the implementation of death sentences for drug offences and an ongoing lack of transparency”, the NGOs said.

IHR head Mahmood AmiryMoghaddam expressed concern that there was “less scrutiny” on Iran’s rights record as powers focused on bringing nuclear talks to a positive conclusion.

“There will be no (deal) … unless the situation of human rights in general and the death penalty in particular, are central parts of the negotiations,” he said.

The report said at least 17 women were executed in 2021, compared to nine in 2020.

Twelve were sentenced for murder and five on drug-related charges.

There has been growing concern over the numbers of women executed on charges of murdering a husband or relative who activists believe may have been abusive.

It noted the case of a woman, Zahra Esmaili, who shot her husband dead in 2017. It said she was executed last February and may have had a heart attack before being hanged after watching others suffer the same fate.

In another case, Maryam Karimi was convicted for the murder of her husband and was hanged last March, with her daughter carrying out the execution by kicking away the stool as is allowed under Iranian law.

The report also expressed concern that the execution of members of ethnic minority groups also continued to rise, accounting for a disproportionately large number of those hanged.

Prisoners from the Baloch minority accounted for 21 per cent of all executions in 2021, although they only represent 2-6 per cent of Iran’s population.

Most prisoners executed for security-related charges belonged to the ethnic Arab, Baloch and Kurdish minorities, it added.

“We are alarmed at the disproportionate number of ethnic minority executions as evidenced in this report,” said ECPM Director Raphael Chenuil-Hazan.

In one positive development, the report said there were no public executions in Iran last year for the first time in a decade but expressed concern they could start again.