On September 4, 2024, Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, raised urgent concerns in an X post regarding the rising number of executions in Iran. She revealed that at least 93 individuals were executed in August 2024 alone. Sato’s post further underscored the lack of transparency, stating that only a fraction of these executions were officially reported by Iranian authorities, raising serious questions about the scope of the country’s execution practices.
This troubling revelation comes just days after a September 2, 2024, statement from a group of UN experts, including Sato and other prominent Special Rapporteurs, expressing alarm over the sharp increase in executions. The experts reported that 81 executions were confirmed for August 2024, nearly double the 45 recorded in July. This brings the total number of executions in Iran this year to over 400, including 15 women.
“We are deeply concerned by this sharp rise in executions,” the experts said in their joint statement. They highlighted that of the 93 executions in August, only a fraction was officially reported, signaling an urgent need for greater transparency from the Iranian government.
Nearly half of these executions were linked to drug offenses, despite Iran being a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which restricts the use of the death penalty to the “most serious crimes” – understood as intentional killings. The experts reiterated that executing individuals for drug offenses violates international human rights standards.
Since 2021, Iran has seen a marked increase in drug-related executions, with more than 400 individuals executed in 2023 alone for such offenses. This trend persists despite revisions to the Law for Combating Illicit Drugs, which aimed to limit the death penalty’s application.
The UN experts stressed that nations retaining the death penalty must ensure that individuals are not subjected to torture, inhumane treatment, or unfair trials. They raised concerns that many of those executed in Iran were denied due process. One such case involved Reza (Gholamreza) Rasaei, a Kurdish protester, who was executed on August 6, 2024, following a trial marred by allegations of torture and forced confessions.
The experts pointed to other individuals facing the death penalty for vaguely defined security-related offenses, such as “waging war against God” and “spreading corruption on earth,” which they argue do not meet the threshold of “most serious crimes” under international law. They cited several individuals, including two women – Sharifeh Mohammadi and Pakhshan Azizi – who have been sentenced to death on dubious charges.
In their final appeal, the UN experts called on the Iranian authorities to immediately halt all executions and to ensure that the fundamental rights of individuals facing the death penalty are respected. “Wrongful executions are irreversible. The current implementation of the death penalty in Iran leaves us extremely concerned that innocent individuals may have been executed,” they warned.
