Amnesty: 853 Executions in Iran
Iran carried out more death sentences in 2023 than nearly any other country. According to a report published April 4th by the human rights organization Amnesty International, at least 853 people were executed in Iran in the previous year. That’s 48 percent more than in 2022 – and 172 percent more than in 2021.
2023 “saw Iran’s prisons transformed into sites of mass killings,” the organization declared in a press release. More than 56 percent of the executions were carried out for drug-related offenses and thus were directed primarily at poor and marginalized communities. Last year also saw a wave of executions of demonstrators, social media users, and other actual or suspected opponents of the regime. The death sentences were often handed down in unfair, politically influenced, or even secret trials, according to the report.
Not since 2015 has the Iranian state killed so many prisoners. Amnesty has observed a rise in the number of executions since the country-wide mass protests of the “Woman Life Freedom” movement that began in September 2022. The authorities use the death penalty “to instill fear among the population and tighten their grip on power.”
Christian Mihr, acting General Secretary of Amnesty International Germany, appealed to the German government and the international community with his demand that “The mass executions in Iran must have tangible diplomatic consequences – otherwise the Iranian authorities will feel emboldened to execute thousands more people in the coming years with impunity.”
Exactly how many people were killed is difficult to determine, says Amnesty: the authorities publish no statistics on the number of death sentences issued and carried out. Amnesty was able to investigate the cases documented in the report in collaboration with the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, a human rights organization. Sources included reports from state and independent media outlets as well as other human rights organizations. Amnesty nevertheless assumes that the actual number is even higher.
Drug Policy Marginalizes Minority Groups
In light of the significant rise in the number of executions for drug-related offenses, Amnesty declared that Iran had returned to a deadly anti-drug policy – this even though international law prohibits the use of the death penalty for drug offenses. “The death penalty is abhorrent in all circumstances but deploying it on a mass scale for drug-related offenses after grossly unfair trials before Revolutionary Courts is a grotesque abuse of power,” said Diana Eltahawy, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
Executions for drug-related offenses were often carried out in secret – not even family members and lawyers were informed. Typically relatives were contacted only afterwards, to allow them to collect the remains of the executed individual.
The government’s anti-drug strategy had a discriminatory effect on communities which were already among the most severely marginalized and impoverished populations in the country. “Iran’s Baluchi minority accounted for 29 percent (138) of drug-related executions in 2023 while constituting only about 5 percent of Iran’s population,” stated Amnesty. In 2022 the percentage of Baluchi individuals executed for drug-related offenses was even higher, at 42 percent.
A large part of the Iranian Baluchi population lives in Iran’s poorest provinces. Amnesty reports that Sistan and Baluchistan are chronically underfunded by the central government and are underdeveloped as a result. The authorities however deny that economic hardship and systematic marginalization are the root causes of drug-related offenses.
Fear as a Weapon
Amnesty also reports a “wave of executions” in the past year in connection with the mass protests of the “Woman Life Freedom” movement. In 2023 the Iranian authorities executed six men in connection with the mass protests of 2022 and one man in connection with the country-wide protests in November 2019. At least seven more individuals were sentenced to death in connection with protests and, according to Amnesty, find themselves in immediate danger of being executed. Some of those killed were sentenced for alleged offenses such as “insulting the Prophet,” “apostasy,” “enmity against God,” or “corruption on Earth.”
In these instances as well, Amnesty says, the executions often took place without prior notice to family members or attorneys, who as a result were denied a final visit. In one case the authorities reportedly informed the family a day before the execution that it had been called off and that a pardon was forthcoming.
“Protesters, dissidents and members of oppressed ethnic minorities are among those executed as the authorities have weaponized the death penalty in an orchestrated bid to sow fear among the public and suppress dissent,” said Diana Eltahawy.
Since January 2018, at least 13 people have been put to death in connection with protests. The individuals killed were sentenced to death following extremely unfair trials. Moreover, in every case there were accusations of torture which were not investigated.
Show Trials before Revolutionary Courts
Revolutionary Courts issued 61 percent of the death sentences carried out in 2023. These courts have jurisdiction over a wide spectrum of crimes, including drug-related offenses, which are considered by the authorities to be a threat to “national security.” Amnesty charges that the courts lack independence and were under the influence of the security and intelligence services. What’s more, “confessions” obtained through torture were routinely used to issue guilty verdicts in grossly unfair summary trials.
“Proceedings by such courts are inherently unfair with defendants being systematically denied fair trial rights, including to adequate defense, to meaningfully challenge the legality of their detention, to presumption of innocence, not to self-incriminate and to meaningful review,” Amnesty charged in its report.
Need for International Pressure
According to Amnesty, Iran also executed six people in 2023 who were under 18 when the crime of which they were convicted was committed; one of those sentenced to death was only 17 at the time of his execution.
This makes Iran one of the few remaining countries to use the death penalty against people who are under 18 at the time of the offense. This, said Amnesty, is a violation of international law and of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which Iran is a signatory.
Amnesty is appealing to the international community and the German government to press for a moratorium on executions. The goal must be the permanent abolition of the death penalty in Iran. Amnesty is also pleading for a renewal of the mandate of the Fact Finding Mission on Iran and the Special Rapporteur on Iran. The effort to gather evidence of human rights abuses in the country must continue, said Acting Amnesty General Secretary Mihr. The UN Human Rights Council will vote this week on whether to renew the mandate.
The German government, continued Mihr, should assert universal jurisdiction and hold those responsible in Iran to account in Germany. If applied, the principle of universal jurisdiction would make it possible to prosecute severe human rights violations regardless of where the crimes were committed or of the nationality of the perpetrators or victims.
The Iranian state has not strayed from its practice in 2024, either: since the beginning of the year, at least 95 people have been killed, according to Amnesty. The organization assumes that the actual number is higher.(hcz)