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Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

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A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

Iran | At Least 49 Executions in July and 300 in First 7 Months of 2024

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Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); August 1, 2024: At least 300 executions took place in Iranian prisons in the first seven months of 2024. 15 women, 42 Baluch and 20 Kurdish minorities, and 20 Afghan nationals were amongst those executed. Of the 300 recorded executions, 172 executions were for drug-related offences. Following a relative decline in executions after Ebrahim Raisi's death and the presidential elections (19 May-5 July), at least 49 people were executed in July, 36 of whom where executed in the last 11 days of the month. 

Iran Human Rights warns about the intensification of executions in Iran and calls for the special attention of the international community and the public to executions in Iranian prisons.

IHRNGO Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “We are particularly worried about the new wave of executions of Kurdish civil activists and drug death row prisoners in the coming weeks and months. The only way to prevent this wave of executions is to raise its political cost through civil society protests and international pressure.”

January-July 2024 executions at a glance:
  • At least 300 people executed 
  • Only 28 executions (9%) were announced by official sources
  • 172 of the recorded executions were for drug-related charges
  • 110 were executed for murder charges (qisas as retribution-in-kind)
  • 15 people were executed for the security-related charges of baghy (armed rebellion), moharebeh (enmity against god) and efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth)
  • Of the 15 security-related executions, 5 were accused of espionage for Israel, 5 were Kurdish-Sunni political prisoners
  • 3 of the recorded executions were for rape charges
  • At least 15 women were executed with 10 hanged for drug offences
  • 42 Baluch and 20 Kurdish minorities were amongst those executed
  • 20 Afghan nationals and one Iraqi national were also amongst those executed
According to data collected by Iran Human Rights, at least 300 people were executed in Iran in the first seven months of 2024. This is a 30% decrease compared to the same period in 2023 when at least 430 people were executed. This decrease can be attributed to the parliamentary and presidential elections and the death of President Raisi.

Of the 300 executions recorded by IHRNGO, only 9% (28 executions) were announced by official sources. The remaining 91% were confirmed by Iran Human RIghts through two independent sources.

Of the 300 recorded executions, 172 were for drug-related charges, 110 for murder, 15 were for the security-related charges of efsad-fil-arz, moharebeh and baghy, and 3 for rape charges.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year since 2021. However, there has been a 20% decrease in the first seven months of 2024 compared to the same period last year when 216 were executed for drug-related charges. 95 drug executions were recorded for the same period in 2022.

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, August 3, 2024

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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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