Execution is one of the methods of repression in the Vilayet-e Faqih system. Iran is second in the list of countries with the highest executions in the world after China.
Executions in 2019
According to human rights organizations, during the one-year period from January 2019 to December 2019, at least 248 citizens were executed, and 108 others were sentenced to death.
The executions also include the execution of four child offenders, as well as 13 public executions. According to the report, more than 75% of executions in Iran are not reported by the government or the judiciary of the regime.
Human Rights Watch released its annual report on the human rights situation around the world, including Iran, in the year 2019, on 14 January 2020.
The section on Iran states that “According to rights groups, Iran executed at least 225 as of November 9”.
“The judiciary also executed at least five individuals who were sentenced to death for crimes they allegedly committed as children. Under Iran’s current penal code, which went into force in 2013, judges can use their discretion not to sentence individuals who committed the alleged crime as children to death. However, several individuals who were retried under the new code for crimes they allegedly committed as children have been sentenced to death again.
“While scores of human rights defenders and political activists remain behind bars for their peaceful activism, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organization increased their targeting of human rights defenders and activists.”
On women’s rights, the report added: “Iranian women face discrimination in personal status matters related to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody. Iranian women cannot pass on their nationality to their foreign-born spouses or their children like men.
A married woman may not obtain a passport or travel outside the country without the written permission of her husband. Under the civil code, a husband is accorded the right to choose the place of living and can prevent his wife from having certain occupations if he deems them against “family values.”
The report also referred to executions, inhumane punishments, procedures, trial standards, minorities and the rights of persons with disabilities.
“Iranian leaders have responded to widespread disgust over a corrupt and brutal rule with violent repression and by silencing of all domestic dissent lest it threatens their power,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
And ridiculous is that the Mizan News Agency affiliated with the Iranian Judiciary, which is promoting institutional executions and suppression in Iran under the rule of the supreme leader, used the HRW report to denounce “human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia” on 15 January 2020, which included “two mass arrests,” and paid no attention to the report of the HRW report on the regime itself.
21 Execution since the beginning of 2020
In recent days, after the beginning of 2020, executions in Iran have continued and daily, news of executions has been heard from around the country. From 1 January to 1 February, 21 people have been executed in Iran’s prisons.
- On 6 January Ali Ashouri was executed at Dastgerd prison in Esfahan.
- On 8 January, a prisoner named Saman and 25 years old was executed at Rajaii Shahr Prison in Karaj.
- On 12 January, a prisoner named Omid-D was executed in Mashhad Central Prison.
- On 12 January, a prisoner named M.P. was executed in Amol Prison.
- On 14 January Dariush Darvishpour and Danesh Darvishpour were executed in Orumiyeh prison.
- In the second week of January, a young woman named Sara M., 32 years old, was executed in Mashhad prison.
- Three inmates were executed in Boroujerd and Shiraz Central Prisons on 16 January, including one woman, Heshmat Sheikhani, 31 years old, Malihe Haji Hassani, 29 years old, an unknown third person.
- On 18 January, political prisoner Maha Al-Din Ebrahimi was sentenced to death in Urmia Prison.
- On 20 January, Sar-Allah Mirshekari was executed at Adelabad Prison in Shiraz.
- On 21 January Bahram Gholikhani was executed in Tabriz Prison.
- On 23 January, five prisoners named Isa Zamin Gerefte, Javad Aliloo, Masih Hatami, and Raman Mohammad Amini were executed in Bandar Abbas Prison.
- On 26 January, Sobhan Karimi was executed in Zanjan prison.
- On 27 January, two defendants were executed in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, including an 81-year-old prisoner named “Kh. GH.”
- On 30 January, Mohsen Khojasteh was executed in Rasht prison.
- On 2 February, Rasoul Mollahsani was executed in Boroujerd Central Prison.