Skip to main content

Iran | At Least 166 Executions in October; Highest Monthly Execution Toll in Two Decades

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 2, 2024: Amid escalating tensions between Iran and Israel, and under the cover of war propaganda, the Islamic Republic carried out at least 166 executions in October alone.

This marks the highest number of executions recorded in a single month since Iran Human Rights began documenting executions in 2007. Among those executed were 13 Afghan nationals, six women, and an Iranian-German citizen.

Iran Human Rights warns that the Islamic Republic may take advantage of the rising conflict between Iran and Israel to escalate the number of executions in the coming months. The organization calls on the international community, media, and civil society to closely monitor and respond to this alarming rise in executions.

IHRNGO Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said, “While the world’s attention is focused on the tensions between Iran and Israel, the Islamic Republic is using this opportunity to conduct the largest wave of executions in Iran’s prisons in two decades. The international community and countries with diplomatic ties to Iran must take this warning seriously and respond decisively to prevent further atrocities by the Islamic Republic.” 

October 2024 Executions at a Glance:
  • At least 166 individuals were executed in October 2024.
  • Six women were among those executed.
  • 80 people were executed for murder charges.
  • 64 individuals were executed for drug-related charges.
  • 12 individuals faced execution on charges of “enmity against God” (moharebeh) or “corruption on earth.”
  • Only 20 executions (12%) were reported by official Iranian sources.
  • Among those executed were 11 Baluch and 9 Kurdish citizens.
  • Thirteen Afghan nationals were executed in October.
  • One executed prisoner had a history of mental illness and prior psychiatric hospitalization.
In the first 10 months of 2024, at least 651 people have been executed in Iran. Since the presidential election and the recent escalation in Iran-Israel tensions, the number of executions has surged. Since Massoud Pezeshkian took office, at least 353 people have been executed in the months of August, September, and October alone.

In October, executions included at least 80 for murder, 54 for drug-related offenses, 12 for moharebeh or corruption on earth, and 10 for rape. Among those executed was Jamshid Sharmahd, an Iranian-German dissident who was abducted from the UAE and taken to Iran, where he faced an unfair trial in a revolutionary court and was sentenced to death.

The number of executions of Afghan nationals has risen since the Taliban took control in Afghanistan. In 2022, 16 Afghan nationals, including 1 juvenile offender and 1 woman, were executed. In 2023, this number increased to 25. This year, the trend has accelerated further, with at least 49 Afghan nationals executed in Iran in the first 10 months of 2024, 13 of whom were executed in October alone.

Source: iranhr.net, Staff, November 2, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________








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

— Oscar Wilde



Labels:
Location: Iran

Comments

Post a Comment

Pro-DP comments will not be published.

Most viewed (Last 7 days)

Who Gets Hanged in Singapore?

Singapore’s death penalty has been in the news again.  Enshrined in law in 1975, a decade after the island split from Malaysia and became an independent state, the penalty can see people sentenced to hang for drug trafficking, murder or firearms offenses, among other crimes. Executions have often involved trafficking under the Misuse of Drugs Act, with offenses measured in grams.  Those executed have included people from low-income backgrounds and foreign nationals who are sometimes not fluent in English, according to human rights advocates such as Amnesty International and the International Drug Policy Consortium. 
Read more

Burkina Faso to bring back death penalty

Burkina Faso's military rulers will bring back the death penalty, which was abolished in 2018, the country's Council of Ministers announced on Thursday. "This draft penal code reinstates the death penalty for a number of offences, including high treason, acts of terrorism, acts of espionage, among others," stated the information service of the Burkinabe government. Burkina Faso last carried out an execution in 1988.
Post a Comment
Read more

China | Former Chinese senior banker Bai Tianhui executed for taking US$155 million in bribes

Bai is the second senior figure from Huarong to be put to death for corruption following the execution of Lai Xiaomin in 2021 China has executed a former senior banker who was found guilty of taking more than 1.1 billion yuan (US$155 million) in bribes. Bai Tianhui, the former general manager of the asset management firm China Huarong International Holdings, was executed on Tuesday after the Supreme People’s Court approved the sentence, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Post a Comment
Read more

Tennessee executes Harold Wayne Nichols

Thirty-seven years after confessing to a series of rapes and the murder of Karen Pulley, Nichols expressed remorse in final words Strapped to a gurney in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution Thursday morning, Harold Wayne Nichols made a final statement.  “To the people I’ve harmed, I’m sorry,” he said, according to prison officials and media witnesses. “To my family, know that I love you. I know where I’m going to. I’m ready to go home.”
Post a Comment
Read more

Oklahoma board recommends clemency for inmate set to be executed next week

A voting board in Oklahoma decided Wednesday to recommend clemency for Tremane Wood, a death row inmate who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection next week at the state penitentiary in McAlester.  Wood, 46, faces execution for his conviction in the 2001 murder of Ronnie Wipf, a migrant farmworker, at an Oklahoma City hotel on New Year's Eve, court records show. The recommendation was decided in a 3-2 vote by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, consisting of five members appointed by either the governor or the state's top judicial official, according to CBS News affiliate KWTV. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Sitt will consider the recommendation as he weighs whether to grant or deny Wood's clemency request, which would mean sparing him from execution and reducing his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Read more

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers carry out public execution in sports stadium

The man had been convicted of killing 13 members of a family, including children, and was executed by one of their relatives, according to police. Afghanistan's Taliban authorities carried out the public execution of a man on Tuesday convicted of killing 13 members of a family, including several children, earlier this year. Tens of thousands of people attended the execution at a sports stadium in the eastern city of Khost, which the Supreme Court said was the eleventh since the Taliban seized power in 2021 in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of US and NATO forces.
Post a Comment
Read more

Afghanistan | Two Sons Of Executed Man Also Face Death Penalty, Says Taliban

The Taliban governor’s spokesperson in Khost said on Tuesday that two sons of a man executed earlier that day have also been sentenced to death. Their executions, he said, have been postponed because the heir of the victims is not currently in Afghanistan. Mostaghfer Gurbaz, spokesperson for the Taliban governor in Khost, also released details of the charges against the man executed on Tuesday, identified as Mangal. He said Mangal was accused of killing members of a family.
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah | Ralph Menzies dies on death row less than 3 months after his execution was called off

Judge was set to consider arguments in December about Menzies’ mental fitness  Ralph Menzies, who spent more than 3 decades on Utah’s death row for the 1986 murder of Maurine Hunsaker, has died.  Menzies, 67, died of “presumed natural causes at a local hospital” Wednesday afternoon, according to the Utah Department of Corrections.  Matt Hunsaker, Maurine Hunsaker’s son, said Menzies’ death “was a complete surprise.”  “First off, I’d say that I’m numb. And second off, I would say, grateful,” Hunsaker told Utah News Dispatch. “I’m grateful that my family does not have to endure this for the holidays.” 
Post a Comment
Read more

Iran | Child Bride Saved from the Gallows After Blood Money Raised Through Donations, Charities

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); December 9, 2025: Goli Kouhkan, a 25-year-old undocumented Baluch child bride who was scheduled to be executed within weeks, has been saved from the gallows after the diya (blood money) was raised in time. According to the judiciary’s Mizan News Agency , the plaintiffs in the case of Goli Kouhkan, have agreed to forgo their right to execution as retribution. In a video, the victim’s parents are seen signing the relevant documents. Goli’s lawyer, Parand Gharahdaghi, confirmed in a social media post that the original 10 billion (approx. 100,000 euros) toman diya was reduced to 8 billion tomans (approx. 80,000 euros) and had been raised through donations and charities.
Post a Comment
Read more

Iran carries out public hanging of "double-rapist"

Iran on Tuesday publicly executed a man after convicting him of raping two women in the northern province of Semnan. The execution was carried out in the town of Bastam after the Supreme Court upheld the verdict, the judiciary's official outlet Mizan Online reported. Mizan cited the head of the provincial judiciary, Mohammad Akbari, as saying the ruling had been 'confirmed and enforced after precise review by the Supreme Court'. The provincial authority said the man had 'deceived two women and committed rape by force and coercion', adding that he used 'intimidation and threats' to instil fear of reputational harm in the victims.
Post a Comment
Read more