Iran in international spotlight amid sharp rise in executions: OHCHR

An aerial view of Tehran, capital city of Iran. © Unsplash-Mahyar Motebassem

The number of people executed last year in Iran was “alarmingly shocking and high”, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.

At least 901 people were reportedly executed there in 2024, including 40 in one week alone in December. More than 853 people were executed in 2023.

Condemning the executions, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said that he was deeply troubled by this marked increase in use of the death penalty and urged a halt to the practice.

'Unacceptable risk'

"We oppose the death penalty under all circumstances...It is incompatible with the fundamental right to life and raises the unacceptable risk of executing innocent people," he added. 

Most of the executions last year were for drug-related offences, but dissidents and people connected to the 2022 protests after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, were also put to death. 

The UN rights office said that at least 31 women were reportedly executed in 2024; the majority of these cases involved murder and a significant number of the women sentenced to death were victims of domestic violence, child marriage or forced marriage, with “a number of them …convicted of murdering their husbands”, OHCHR said.

Although data is not provided by the Iranian authorities on executions, the UN rights office cited reliable sources indicating that Iran executed at least 972 people in 2015 – the highest number in recent decades. – UN News