Ten months after a young man was executed in a northwest Iran prison, the Supreme Court overturned the convictions against him.
Khezr Ghavidel was arrested in 2013 for drug charges and sentenced to death along with two others.
Khezr Ghavidel was executed on September 10, 2020 while his case was being considered by the Supreme Court, which has now ruled that the death sentence has been overturned.
The prosecutor told Khezr Ghavidel’s family that they could file a complaint and receive the ransom of their loved one.
In this case, the death sentence of another prisoner has been commuted to 30 years in prison.
Recent study by Amnesty International and the Human Rights Organization of Iran in July 2020 show that in the 20 years between 2000 and 2019, over 8,071 executions were carried out in Iranian prisons or in public.
These statistics have made Iran one of the countries with the highest number of executions in the last two decades.
At least 150 prisoners have been executed since January 2021. A large number of the executions are based on charges that do not amount to ‘most serious crimes’, including drug and national security charges, and following serious shortcomings of fair trial and due process rights.
Iran routinely hangs prisoners or sentence them to death despite serious due process violations, including allegations of torture and forced confessions.
It executed at least 255 people in 2020, upholding its place as one of the world’s top executioners, with around 57 of these people killed for crimes other than murder, including political actions, drug offenses, sexual offenses, drinking alcohol, robbery, and the vague “waging war on God.”
Those executed included at least six juvenile offenders, eight women, and 12 political prisoners, including champion wrestler Navid Afkari.
Of course, given the secrecy of the regime, these figures were reported by human rights activists inside Iran who risked their lives. We can assume that all of the figures in this report are a minimum.
