Iran executions surge in bid to 'spread fear': rights groups

Iran hanged 75 percent more people in 2022 than the previous year, two rights groups said on Thursday, warning this "killing machine" risked putting even more people to death this year after protests rocked the country.

The figure of at least 582 executions was the highest for Iran since 2015 and well above the figure of 333 for 2021, the report by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) said.

Last year was marked by the eruption of nationwide protests sparked by the death in September of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old ethnic Kurd who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress rules for women.

The authorities responded with a crackdown that saw four men hanged in protest-related cases, executions that prompted an international outcry.

IHR director Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam said that while the international reaction was keeping protest-related executions in check, Iran was pressing ahead with executions on other charges to deter people from protesting.

"We fear the number of executions will dramatically increase in 2023 if the international community does not react more," he told AFP.

"Every execution in Iran is political, regardless of the charges," he added, describing those executed on drug or murder charges as the "low cost victims" of Iran's "killing machine".

He said that with over 150 executions in the first three months of this year alone, the overall total for 2023 risked being the highest in some two decades, exceeding even 2015 when, according to IHR, 972 people were put to death in Iran.

'Dramatic surge'

The report said that after the four men were executed on protest-related charges, 100 more protesters risk execution after being sentenced to death or charged with capital offences.

It expressed alarm over a sharp rise in the number of drug-related executions after the protests erupted.

A fall in the number of drug-related executions -- driven by 2017 amendments to the anti-narcotics law -- had been behind a drop in the overall number of executions in Iran up to 2021.

More than half of those executed after the start of the protests, and 44 percent of the 582 executions recorded in 2022, were on drug-related charges.

This was more than double the number in 2021, and 10 times higher than the number of drug-related executions in 2020, it said.

The rights groups lamented what they said was a lack of reaction from the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) and its donor states to this "dramatic surge".

"Lack of reaction by the UNODC and donor countries to the reversal of these reforms (of 2017) sends the wrong signal to the Iranian authorities," ECPM director Raphael Chenuil-Hazan said.

The report said members of the mainly Sunni Muslim Baluch minority accounted for 30 percent of executions nationwide, even though they account for just two to six percent of Iran's population.

The numbers of ethnic Kurds and Arabs executed were also disproportionate, especially for drug crimes, the report said.

"The death penalty is part of the systematic discrimination and extensive repression ethnic minorities of Iran are subjected to," it said.

The most executions -- 288, or 49 percent -- were for murder, the highest in more than 15 years.

Two people, including protester Majidreza Rahnavard, were hanged in public, the report said. At least three juvenile offenders were among those executed while at least 16 women were hanged.

Iran's penal code allows execution by methods that include firing squad, stoning and even crucifixion but in recent years all executions have been carried out by hanging.

Chenuil-Hazan said Iran executes more people annually than any nation other than China -- for which no accurate data is available -- and more in proportion to its population than any nation in the world.

"Iran has always used the death penalty since 1979 (the Islamic revolution) in a systematic and significant way," he said.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, April 13, 2023

_____________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW US ON:

TELEGRAM

TWITTER

CONTACT: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Florida executes Michael Tanzi

Florida on Tuesday executed a death row inmate described by one local detective as a "fledgling serial killer" for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee. Florida executed Michael Tanzi on Tuesday, 25 years after the murder of beloved Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta, who was attacked in broad daylight on her lunch break in 2000. Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET.

South Carolina executes Mikal Mahdi

Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday, the second such execution in the US state of South Carolina this year. Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers, an off-duty police officer, and the murder of a convenience store employee three days earlier. According to a statement from the prison, "the execution was performed by a three-person firing squad at 6:01 pm (2201 GMT)," with Mahdi pronounced dead four minutes later.

Afghanistan | Four men publicly executed by Taliban with relatives of victims shooting them 'six or seven times' at sport stadium

Four men have been publicly executed by the Taliban, with relatives of their victims shooting them several times in front of spectators at a sport stadium. Two men were shot around six to seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Afghanistan's Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. The men had been 'sentenced to retaliatory punishment' for shooting other men, after their cases were 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the statement said. 'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.'

USA | Why the firing squad may be making a comeback

South Carolina plans to execute Mikal Mahdi on Friday for the murder of a police officer, draping a hood over his head and firing three bullets into his heart. The choice to die by firing squad – rather than lethal injection or the electric chair – was Mahdi’s own, his attorney said last month: “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils.” If it proceeds, Mahdi’s execution would be the latest in a recent string of events that have put the spotlight on the firing squad as a handful of US death penalty states explore alternatives to lethal injection, by far the nation’s dominant execution method.

I spent 16 years in solitary in South Carolina. This is what it did to me. | Opinion

South Carolinian Randy Poindexter writes about the effects 16 years of solitary confinement had on him ahead of South Carolina’s planned execution of Mikal Mahdi , who spent months in solitary as a young man. For 16 years, I lived in a concrete cell. Twenty-three hours a day, every day, for more than 3,000 days, South Carolina kept me in solitary confinement. I was a young man before I was sent to solitary — angry, untreated and unwell. I made mistakes. But I wasn’t sentenced to madness. That’s what solitary did to me. My mental health worsened with each passing day. At first, paranoia and depression set in. Then, hallucinations and self-mutilation. I talked to people who weren’t there. I cut myself to feel something besides despair. I could do nothing as four of my friends and fellow prisoners took their own lives rather than endure another day of torturous isolation.

South Carolina | Man who ambushed off-duty cop to face firing squad in second execution of its kind

Mikal Mahdi, 48, who was found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer and a convenience store worker, is the second inmate scheduled to executed by South Carolina's new firing squad A murderer who ambushed and shot an off duty police officer eight times before burning his body in a killing spree is set to become the second person to die by firing squad. South Carolina's highest court has rejected the last major appeal from Mikal Mahdi, 41, who is to be put to death with three bullets to the heart at 6pm on April 11 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Mahdi's lawyers said his original lawyers put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that didn't call on relatives, teachers or people who knew him and ignored the impact of weeks spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

Louisiana | Lawyers of Jessie Hoffman speak about their final moments before execution

As Louisiana prepared its first execution in 15 years, a team of lawyers from Loyola Law were working to save Jessie Hoffman’s life. “I was a young lawyer three years out of law school, and Jessie was almost finished with his appeals at that time, and my boss told me we needed to file something for Jessie because he’s in danger of being executed,” Kappel said. Kappel and her boss came up with a civil lawsuit to file that said since they wouldn’t give him a protocol for his execution, he was being deprived of due process, and the lawsuit was in the legal process for the next 10 years.

Lethal Injection, Electric Chair, or Firing Squad? An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners

South Carolina resumed executions with the firing squad killing of Brad Sigmon last month. Mikal Madhi’s execution date is days away. The curtain shrieked as it was yanked open to reveal a 67-year-old man tied to a chair. His arms were pulled uncomfortably behind his back. The red bull’s-eye target on his chest rose and fell as he desperately attempted to still his breathing. The man, Brad Sigmon, smiled at his attorney, Bo King, seated in the front row before guards placed a black bag over his head. King said Sigmon appeared to be trying his best to put on a brave face for those who had come to bear witness.

Execution date set for prisoner transferred to Oklahoma to face death penalty

An inmate who was transferred to Oklahoma last month to face the death penalty now has an execution date. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, is scheduled to die on June 12 for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set the execution date. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board has a tentative date of May 7 for Hanson’s clemency hearing, executive director Tom Bates said.

Arizona | The cruelty of isolation: There’s nothing ‘humane’ about how we treat the condemned

On March 19, I served as a witness to the execution of a man named Aaron Gunches, Arizona’s first since 2022. During his time on death row, he begged for death and was ultimately granted what is likely more appropriately described as an emotionless state-assisted suicide. This experience has profoundly impacted me, leading to deep reflection on the nature of death, humanity, and the role we play in our final moments. When someone is in the end stages of life, we talk about hospice care, comfort, care, easing suffering and humane death. We strive for a “good death” — a peaceful transition. I’ve seen good ones, and I’ve seen bad, unplanned ones.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog