Judicial executions in Iran have increased by 75% in 2022, with 582 hangings, according to two human rights organizations which denounce a “killing machine” aimed at “instilling fear” in the country.
Beginning in September 2022, Iran was rocked for weeks by mass protests sparked by the death in custody of Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini, arrested for violating the very strict dress code imposed on Iranian women.
The authorities in Tehran violently repressed the movement, with four hangings directly linked to it, provoking strong condemnations abroad.
The figure of at least 582 executions is the highest in the Islamic Republic since 2015 (972), after a total of 333 executions in 2021, according to the Norway-based NGO Iran human rights (IHR) and Together against the punishment of dead (ECPM), based in Paris.
The death penalty has been “once again used as an ultimate tool of intimidation and oppression by the Iranian regime in order to maintain the stability of its power”, say these NGOs in a joint report published Thursday .
“In order to instill fear among the population and the protesting youth, the authorities have intensified the executions of prisoners sentenced for reasons other than political ones”, specifies the director of IHR, Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam.
“To stop the death machine put in place by the Iranian regime, the international community and civil society, whether there or not, must actively show their opposition each time a person is executed in the country,” he insists.
According to him, 150 people have been executed since the beginning of the year, raising fears that the figures in 2023 will exceed the previous record of 2015. “Every execution in Iran is political”, he hammered Thursday, during the presentation of the report to the media.
The report also claims that approximately 100 detainees are currently either on death row or on trial for capital charges.
According to these same sources, the number of convictions in drug trafficking cases has increased sharply, while their decline, linked to an amendment in 2017 to the law on narcotics trafficking, had led to a significant drop in the statistics until 2021.
More than half of those executed after the protests began, and 44% of executions recorded in 2022, were drug-related. This is double the figures for 2021 and ten times those for 2020.
The authors of the report denounce in this regard the passivity of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
“The lack of response from UNODC and its affiliated countries does not send the right message to the Iranian authorities. The abolition of the death penalty for crimes related to drug trafficking must be set as an indispensable condition future cooperation between UNODC and Iran,” said ECPM director Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan.
On Thursday, he pointed out that Iran executes the most convicts in the world after China, for which no statistics are available, and more than any other country in the world in proportion to its population.
According to the report, members of the Baloch minority, mainly Sunni, account for 30% of executions despite accounting for only 2 to 6% of the national population. Such a disproportion is also noted among the Kurdish and Arab minorities.
The death penalty is “a means of pressure and, more broadly, a repressive lever to manage the social problems of the country”, estimates the report, according to which 288 executions, 49% of the total, were justified by cases of murder, the highest figure for 15 years.
Two people, including protester Majidreza Rahnavard, were hanged in public, the statement said. At least three people executed were minors and 16 were women.
04/13/2023 17:29:50 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
