Iran has stepped up executions of prisoners including those convicted of drug related charges after Raisi’s presidential inauguration.
At least 22 prisoners have been executed in August, bringing the total number of those executed in 2021 to at least 210.
Seven of those executed in August were charged with murder while the other 15 were executed on drug charges.
A juvenile offender is among those executed. In a statement released on August 4, Amnesty International reported that Iranian authorities executed a man who was 15 at the time of his arrest over a fatal stabbing and spent nearly a decade on death row.
The rights group said Sajad Sanjari was hanged on August 2 in Dizelabad prison in the western province of Kermanshah.
In August 2010, police arrested Sanjari, who was then 15, over the fatal stabbing of a man.
Sanjari said the man had tried to rape him and claimed he had acted in self-defense.
But in 2012 he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
Ebrahim Raisi‘s taking office saw an appalling rise in the frequency of executions in Iran. This development is compatible with Raisi’s mass executions in Iran, particularly in the summer of 1988.
Iran comes second only to China when it comes to number of executions worldwide – but with a much smaller population.
Under its Islamic Penal Code, a death sentence can be handed down for crimes such as kidnapping, adultery, drinking alcohol and political crimes as well as murder.
Children can also be sentenced to death, which is against international law.
Iran HRM once again calls on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Council and other institutions defending human rights to take urgent action to save the lives of Iranian prisoners on death row. The Iranian regime’s dossier of human rights violations must be referred to the UN Security Council. The leaders and officials of the clerical regime in Iran must face justice for four decades of committing crimes against humanity.
