Iran | 8th Protester Executed; Milad Zohrevand Secretly Executed in Hamedan

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 24, 2023: Milad Zohrevand, a Malayer protester arrested during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” nationwide protests, was secretly executed for murder charges in Hamedan Central Prison. At least 684 people have been executed in Iran in 2023. Executions have surged since the start of the war in Gaza, with at least 152 executed by the Islamic Republic since 7 October 2023.

IHRNGO condemns Milad Zohrevand’s execution in the strongest terms and urges an appropriate response by the international community.

Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “Like the execution of other protesters, Milad Zohrevand’s execution without due process or a fair trial is a criminal act and Islamic Republic authorities must be held accountable for this crime. Protester executions weren’t carried out in the last months due to the strong international backlash and high political cost. The international community’s relative silence to the extraordinary wave of executions over the past months has prompted the Islamic Republic to resume protester executions.”

IHRNGO is gravely concerned for the lives of the dozens of protesters currently on death row or awaiting death penalty sentences in Iranian prisons. It reiterates that an inadequate reaction to Milad’s execution will lead to more protester hangings.

According to BBC Persian, Milad Zohrevand was secretly executed in Hamedan Central Prison on 22 November. Milad was a 20-year-old Malayer protester arrested on 27 October 2022, the 40 day anniversary of Jina (Mahsa) Amini’s death which sparked protests across Iran.

State media alleged that Milad Zohrevand had killed an IRGC officer named Ali Nazari that day. He was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder. On 15 November, the judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported that Milad’s sentence had been upheld by the Supreme Court.

He was denied the right to due process and fair trial rights. Milad’s execution was carried out secretly, denying him the right to say goodbye to his family.

Executions are currently at their highest rate since 2015. At least 684 people have been executed in 2023, with 152 executed since 7 October, the start of the war in Gaza.

Milad Zohrevand is the eighth “Woman, Life, Freedom” protester executed. Mohsen Shekari, Majidreza Rahnavard, Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, Mohammad Mehdi Karami, Saleh Mirhashemi, Saeed Yaghoubi and Majid Kazemi have all been executed since December 2022.

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, November 24, 2023

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Facebook | Telegram | Contact Us

Tennessee | Questions Raised About the Doctor Who Was Overseeing Tony Caruthers’ Execution

Mark Fowler, according to a deposition, had not placed a central line in a patient for more than a decade when he attempted to put one in Carruthers Around 11 a.m. Thursday morning in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, a medical doctor stepped in and attempted to place a central IV line in Tony Carruthers’ chest. By that point, the prison staff had spent some 30 minutes trying unsuccessfully to insert a backup IV line that would allow them to proceed with the lethal injection. According to Carruthers’ attorney Maria DeLiberato, who was in the room, after asking a staff member to attempt inserting a line through Carruthers’ jugular vein, the doctor moved on to the central line, which is identified as the last resort in Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol .

Iraq: German schoolgirl, 17, turned jihadi bride escapes death penalty and is jailed for six years

GERMAN Jihadi bride Linda Wenzel has been jailed for six years in Baghdad for her role as an Islamic enforcer with terror group ISIS. Wenzel, 17, who last year sobbed on TV “I have ruined my life,” could have faced the death penalty. German media reported that a German embassy representative in Iraq was in court yesterday to witness her sentencing. She received five years for joining IS and one year for entering Iraq illegally. Wenzel was found in the rubble of IS stronghold Mosul back in the summer of 2017. Charges were laid against her and three other German women captured with her. Schoolgirl Wenzel fled to Turkey then into Syria last year from her hometown of Pulsnitz in eastern Germany after being groomed online by a Chechen IS fighter who she married. He was killed in the savage fighting for Mosul while she was employed by the terror group enforcing the strict Islamic dress code on women in the city. She burst into tears after her capture and said s...

Oklahoma | Richard Glossip on Life After Decades on Death Row

In an exclusive interview at home in Oklahoma City, Glossip describes his first days of freedom in a world he hasn’t experienced for nearly 30 years. For three decades, Richard Glossip lived on concrete. First at the Oklahoma County jail, after his arrest for murder in 1997, and then in the underground bunker housing death row inmates at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. As with the rest of his surroundings, he eventually got used to the hard, unforgiving floors, although recently he’d developed painful swelling in his legs.

Iran | Four 'Woman, Life, Freedom' Protesters Sentenced to Hang by 'Death Judge' in Sham Trial

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 25 May 2026: Milad Armoun, Navid Najaran, Seyed Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini and Mehdi Imani, four “Woman, Life, Freedom” protesters, were sentenced to death by “Death Judge” Salavati after a grossly unfair trial. Defence counsel representing the defendants in what became known as the “Ekbatan case” have detailed the severe procedural and substantive flaws that violated fundamental due process rights and undermined the legitimacy of the rulings issued by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court. News of the judgement comes just days after the Criminal Court acquitted the defendants of murder charges.

China Executed 2,400 People in 2013, Dui Hua

A Chinese police officer lights a last cigarette for an inmate moments before his execution. The Dui Hua Foundation estimates that China executed approximately 2,400 people in 2013 and will execute roughly the same number of people in 2014. Annual declines in executions recorded in recent years are likely to be offset in 2014 by the use of capital punishment in anti-terrorism campaigns in Xinjiang and the anti-corruption campaign nationwide. Dui Hua bases its 2013 estimate on data points published in Southern Weekly that are consistent with information provided to Dui Hua by a judicial official earlier this year. The mainland magazine reported that a former senior judge of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) stated at a seminar in July that the number of executions had reached 1/10 of the highest number recorded since 1979. In 1983 - the 1st year of the Strike Hard campaign during which the power to approve capital punishment was given to provincial high courts - 2...

Iran executes Esma Zarei in Ardabil Prison after she gave birth in custody

Hengaw – Saturday, May 23, 2026. Iranian authorities have executed Esma Zarei, a 28-year-old Turkish woman from Parsabad in Ardabil Province, who had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder” in connection with the killing of her husband. She is the sixth woman executed in Iran since the beginning of 2026. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Zarei was executed at dawn on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Ardabil Central Prison. She had been sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) after being convicted of her husband’s murder.

EU GSP+ Reform: Will Brussels Finally Enforce Its Own Conditions on Pakistan?

The EU has tightened the rules governing GSP+ trade preferences, but Pakistan’s record raises a harder question: whether Brussels is prepared to suspend market access when a major beneficiary fails to demonstrate sustained compliance with human rights, labour and governance obligations. The European Union has formally adopted revised rules for its Generalised Scheme of Preferences, strengthening the conditions attached to preferential market access for developing countries. The new framework will apply from 1 January 2027 and is intended to tighten monitoring, widen the list of international conventions, and make suspension of benefits easier in cases of serious violations.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

New Mississippi billboard warns criminals: ‘Firing squad is legal’

DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. (WREG) — A billboard standing on Interstate 55 southbound as you cross the Tennessee state line and enter Mississippi from Memphis is sending a grim message to those coming into the state. DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton recently announced the new billboard campaign, which features the sign reading, “WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WHERE THE FIRING SQUAD IS LEGAL. THINK TWICE.” It references Mississippi’s law permitting execution by firing squad under certain circumstances for inmates sentenced to death. Barton says this campaign is aimed at deterring violent crime and sends a direct message to criminals entering Mississippi.

Florida: The Daily Routine of Death Row Inmates

The breakfast carts rattle through the concrete prison at about 5:30 am and as they approach Death Row the first sounds of morning repeat the last sounds of night - remote controlled locks clanging open and clunking closed, electric gates whirring, heavy metal doors crashing shut, voices wailing, klaxons blaring. A maximum security prison has no soft or delicate sounds. At the end of each corridor of death row cells a guard opens a heavy door of steel bars and a prison trusty pushes a breakfast cart inside. The door closes behind him and when it locks a second door opens and admits the trusty to the wing. He steers his cart along the wing stopping at each cell to pass a tray of powdered eggs and lukewarm grits through a small slot on the bars. Food is prepared by prison staff and transported in insulated carts to the cells. The food carts are full of cockroaches, the food is often undercooked or just rotten and is served on Styrofoam plates with a plastic "spork" - fork/spoon...

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog