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A man protests in Lisbon against Iran’s execution of two men in December over anti-government protests
Executions in Iran increased by 75 percent in 2022, and the authorities executed at least 582 people in an effort to “spread fear” among the protesters, according to reports by human rights organizations.
The figure was the highest since 2015, according to the Norway-based Iranian Human Rights Organization (IHR) and France’s Together Against the Death Penalty (ECBM).
Their reports are based on official statements and sources inside Iran.
Most of those executed were convicted of murder or drug charges, including two protesters who were hanged in December.
Mohsen Shakari, 22, and Magidreza Rahnward, 23, were convicted of “enmity against God,” a vague charge that Iranian security always uses, after what the report said were “sham trials” based on confessions obtained through torture.
Other protesters were also executed earlier this year, and dozens were reported to have been sentenced to death or charged with capital offences.
Protests swept the Islamic Republic following the death of a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish girl, Mahsa Amini, while she was detained by the morality police in Tehran in September, on the pretext of wearing a headscarf “indecently.”
The annual report of the Iranian Human Rights Organization (Iran Human Rights) and Together Against the Death Penalty Organization, on the death penalty in Iran, says that only 71 cases of executions they recorded in the past year were announced by official sources.
The report added that the rest were “undeclared” or “secret” executions, which were reported by sources, including eyewitnesses, family members of those executed, lawyers, and people working in prisons or the judiciary.
According to the report, 288 of those executed, or 49 percent, were convicted of murder, the highest number in 15 years. Among them were 13 women and three people who had allegedly committed crimes as children.
Another 256 people, or 44 percent, including three women, were executed after being convicted of drug-related charges, which is 126 more than in 2021 and ten times higher than in 2020.
The report warns that the significant decrease in the number of drug-related executions that came as a result of the 2017 amendment to the anti-drug law “has been completely reversed in terms of implementation,” and the report laments the “lack of reaction” by the United Nations.
The report also makes clear what it calls the “insidious and insidious link” between the upsurge in executions and anti-government unrest, with one coinciding with the start of the teachers’ protests in May, and the other beginning a month after the death of Mahsa Amini.
“The international reaction to the death sentences imposed on protesters made it difficult for the Islamic Republic to proceed with their executions,” says Mahmoud Amiri Moghadam, director of the International Health Regulations.
He added, “In response, and in order to spread fear among the people, the authorities intensified executions on non-political charges. And these are the low-cost victims of the Islamic Republic’s execution machine.”