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U.S. | I'm a Death Row Pastor. They're Just Ordinary Folks

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In the early 1970s I was a North Carolinian, white boy from the South attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and working in East Harlem as part of a program. In my senior year, I visited men at the Bronx House of Detention. I had never been in a prison or jail, but people in East Harlem were dealing with these places and the police all the time. This experience truly turned my life around.

500th Recorded Execution in Iran in 2023

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Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); September 13, 2023: Abdolnaser Ghaljayi, a Baluch man executed for drug-related charges in Birjand Central Prison is the 500th recorded execution in Iran in 2023.

According to Hal Vash, a Baluch man was executed in Birjand Central Prison in South Khorsasan on 10 September. His identity has been reported as 48-year-old Abdolnaser Ghaljayi from Zahedan.

He was arrested for drug-related charges in Birjand around three years ago sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court.

Two other Baluch men named Saeed and Mohsen Sanjarani were previously reported to have been executed at the prison that day.

At the time of writing, none of their executions have been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Ethnic minorities, the Baluch in particular, are grossly overrepresented in execution numbers in Iran. In 2022, at least 174 Baluch minorities including 3 women, were executed in 22 prisons across Iran, making up 30% of overall executions. This is while they represent just 2-6% of Iran’s population. Furthermore, in the first six months of 2023, 20% of the at least 354 executions were Baluch people.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year for the past three years. At least 206 people were executed for drug-related charges in the first six months of 2023, a 126% rise compared to the same period in 2022 when 91 were executed. 40 people were executed in the same period in 2021.

The number of drug executions dramatically dropped in 2018 following a 2017 Amendment to the Anti-Narcotics Laws. Consequently, drug executions ranged between 24-30 per annum between 2018-2020. The Amendment was reversed in practice in 2021 when executions increased ten-fold to 126 in 2021 and doubled again in 2022 with 256 drug-related executions.

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, September 13, 2023


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

— Oscar Wilde
Location: Iran
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