Iranian authorities executed a prisoner on Thursday, October 31 in public in the city of Arak, southwest of the capital Tehran, the state-run media reported. The report did not mention the prisoners’ name but said he had been sentenced to death for killing a security agent.
On the same day another prisoner was hanged in the Central Prison of Rasht. The prisoner identified as Mehran Ghorbani, has been on death row in the last five years ago on the charge of murder.
The execution has not been published in the state-run press and media.
Mehran Ghorbani was taken to solitary confinement on October 24 along with another prisoner whose execution has been postponed.
An assessment made by the UN’s special investigator on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, has revealed Iran’s execution rate “remains one of the highest in the world” even after a drop from 507 in 2017 to 253 in 2018. So far in 2019, he said, “conservative estimates indicate that at least 173 executions have been carried out.”
Rehman expressed deep concern at the overall use of the death penalty in Iran.
Rehman also told the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee that he has “credible information” there are at least 90 child offenders currently on death row in Iran.
