Iran | Executions in Bandar Abbas, Tehran, Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, Yazd

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 21, 2025: Abdoljabar Jamalzi, an Afghan national on death row for drug-related offences, was executed in Bandarabbas Central Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Bandarabbas Central Prison on 19 May 2025. His identity has been established as Abdoljabar Jamalzi, a married Afghan man from Bakwah, Farah province in Afghanistan.

He was arrested in Roudan county a few years ago and sentenced to death on drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court.

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year since 2021. According to IHRNGO’s 2024 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 503 people were executed for drug-related charges, of which only under 3% were announced by official sources. 17% of all drug-related executions in 2024 were Baluch minorities while they represent 2-6% of Iran’s population. In the first four months of 2025, at least 169 people were hanged for drug-related offences.

Execution in Tehran

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 21, 2025: Yasin (Safar) Hosseinzadeh, a man on death row for a murder, was executed in an undisclosed Tehran/Alborz province prison.

According to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency, a man was hanged in an undisclosed Tehran/Alborz prison on 21 May 2025. His identity and location of execution were not disclosed. He was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for a murder he was alleged to have committed while attacking the Azerbaijan embassy in Tehran.

IHRNGO has established his identity as Yasin (Safar) Hosseinzadeh who was 56 years old.

Those charged with the umbrella term of “intentional murder” are sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) regardless of intent or circumstances due to a lack of grading in law. Once a defendant has been convicted, the victim’s family are required to choose between death as retribution, diya (blood money) or forgiveness.

Crucially, while an indicative amount is set by the Judiciary every year, there is no legal limit to how much can be demanded by families of the victims. IHRNGO has recorded many cases where defendants are executed because they cannot afford to pay the blood money. Should the victim’s family choose execution, they are not only encouraged to attend, but also to physically carry out the execution themselves.

According to IHRNGO’s 2024 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 419 people including a juvenile offender and 19 women, were executed for murder charges, the highest number of qisas executions since 2010. Only 12% of the recorded qisas executions were announced by official sources. In 2024, Iran Human Rights also recorded 649 cases of families choosing diya or forgiveness instead of qisas executions.

In the first four months of 2025, at least 153 people were executed for murder charges in Iran, per IHRNGO data.

Four executed in Isfahan

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 21, 2025: Four men including two Baluch minorities were executed in Isfahan Central Prison. Mohammad Amin Kolsoomi, Mohammad Naeim Daneshi and Jaber Shehkaramzehi were on death row in separate drug and murder cases.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Isfahan (Dastgerd) Central Prison on 11 May 2025. His identity has been established as Mohammad Amin Kolsoomi who was arrested three years ago and sentenced to death on drug-related charges.

Two other men were hanged at the prison on 14 May. Their identities have been established as 35-year-old Jafar Ghorbani from Kashan and Mohammad Naeim Danesh, a 40-year-old Baluch man from Iranshahr county. Jafar was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder and Mohammad was on death row for drug-related offences.

Finally, another Baluch man was hanged at the prison on 21 May. His identity has been established as 38-year-old Jaber Shehkaramzehi from Khash who was also on death row for drug-related offences.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “Jafar Ghorbani was arrested four years ago for allegedly killing one of his relatives during a fight over financial debt. Mohammad Naeim was a father of one who was arrested seven years ago. He was executed without his family being notified or a last family visit. Jaber was arrested in Naein around seven years ago. He was transferred to solitary confinement on 19 May and had managed to let his family know. Apparently, his family were on their way to Isfahan and didn’t manage to make the last family visit.”

At the time of writing, their executions have not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Execution in Karaj

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 21, 2025: Maziar Karimi, a man on death row for drug-related offences, was executed in Ghezelhesar Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Ghezelhesar Prison on 7 May 2025. His identity has been established as Maziar Karimi, a 40-year-old man on death row for drug-related offences.

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Executions in Shiraz

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 20, 2025: Alireza Zarei and Mosayeb Farhadi, two men on death row for separate drug-related and murder cases, were executed in Shiraz Central Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men were hanged in Shiraz (Adel Abad) Central Prison on 19 May 2025. Their identities have been established as 29-year-old Alireza Zarei and 27-year-old Mosayeb from Sari.

Alireza was arrested for drug-related offences five years ago and sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court. Mosayeb was arrested around four years ago and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder.

At the time of writing, their executions have not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Executions in Yazd

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 20, 2025: Mojtaba Mansouri, a man on death row for drug-related offences, was executed in Yazd Central Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was hanged in Yazd Central Prison on 18 May 2025. His identity has been established as Mojtaba Mansouri, a 44-year-old man from Ardakan who worked in real estate prior to his arrest.

He was arrested three years ago and sentenced to death on drug-related charges by the Revolutionary Court.

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, May 20-21, 2025

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

— Oscar Wilde

Comments

California | Becerra vows to extend moratorium despite past support for capital punishment

SACRAMENTO—Democrat Xavier Becerra defended the death penalty while serving as California’s attorney general, a punishment his office actively sought in the case of a gunman convicted of an Orange County mass shooting, but as the front-running candidate for governor, he has vowed to block executions if elected in November. Becerra said he will extend the blanket reprieve for all death row inmates that Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted by executive order in 2019, saying he supported “moving our state away from a costly, flawed system that disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities and too often gets it wrong.”

Iran | Afghan Citizen Executed in Wheelchair Due to Severe Mobility Disability

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Iranian authorities have reportedly executed an Afghan citizen, identified as Valijan Nourzay, at the central prison in Rafsanjan, according to the human rights organization Hengaw. Hengaw said in a statement on Sunday, September 6, that Nourzay was executed early Wednesday last week at Rafsanjan Central Prison. According to the organization, Nourzay had a severe mobility disability and was executed while in a wheelchair. Hengaw, citing informed sources, reported that Nourzay had been pursued by Iranian authorities three years ago over an alleged murder. He was reportedly seriously wounded after Iranian security forces opened fire on him in Rafsanjan before being arrested and later sentenced to death.

California | He spent 19 years on death row. His conversion to Judaism helped him endure

Johnny Morales struggled to find sleep. He dozed off for a few moments, but officers came to his death row cell and woke him a little after midnight. They needed to inventory and box up his belongings. He was leaving San Quentin. Hands cuffed behind his back, he walked across the empty upper yard in the dim gray hours before daylight. An officer walked alongside him step for step, black latex-gloved fingers holding onto Morales’s arm. For almost 20 years, Morales could only experience the world outside his 4-by-11 foot cell in the condemned housing unit like this—chained and escorted by officers. Security protocols required all death row residents be handcuffed or shackled any time they were out in open space with staff.

Florida executes Daniel Owen Conahan Jr.

In Florida’s 15th execution this year, man put to death for killing linked to ‘Hog Trail Murders’ A Florida man convicted in one of a series of suspected killings that became known as the “Hog Trail Murders” in the 1990s was put to death Thursday, becoming the state’s 15th person executed this year. Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. after receiving a 3-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had been sentenced to die for the 1996 kidnapping and strangling of Richard Allen Montgomery, whose mutilated body was found in a wooded southwest Florida area where authorities found the remains of at least 6 people over a 3-year span.

Egypt TV presenter and 11 others sentenced to death in major drugs case

Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 others have been sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of drug trafficking and rape, while nine defendants received life sentences and seven were acquitted. Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa, 39, has been sentenced to death by hanging along with 11 other defendants after being found guilty in a drugs case involving a criminal gang accused of importing ingredients used to manufacture narcotics for sale.

Afghanistan | Signs that horrific brutality is set to return

Kneeling next to a ditch, deep in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, a 22-year-old woman draws her last breath in a 'desert court' before she is shot in the back with an AK-47. Her executioner? Likely her hardline militant husband, in what the Taliban consider an 'honour killing'. It took less than an hour to decide Najiba had been adulterous – although it has been suggested this accusation was fabricated to protect her husband's reputation. Adultery is a crime that deserves capital punishment under the Taliban's strict interpretation of Sharia law. Fourteen years on from her death, little is known about her story, like many women slowly being erased from the fabric of Afghan society.

He Spent 27 Years on Death Row as a Wrongfully Convicted Man. What Comes Next?

23-hour solitary confinement. 115-degree heat. Jimmie Duncan is haunted by the decades he spent in Louisiana’s Angola Prison—and how, even after being released, he still isn’t truly free. Jimmie “Chris” Duncan wiped the sweat off his forehead as he assessed his temporary home from the parking lot of a rundown motel in central Louisiana. Sure, there’s drug dealing and prostitution, he said on a recent summer afternoon. And he suspected his neighbors were cooking meth on a floor below the room he paid $350 a week to rent.

Singapore | Ministry of Home Affairs refutes claims that death penalty was discussed during visit by Israel's security ministry

The Ministry of Home Affairs says discussions with the Israeli government involved the sharing of best practices in emergency response, crime prevention, and forensics. Issues relating to the death penalty “were never part of the meeting and were not discussed." SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday (Sep 11) refuted claims by an Israeli media outlet that the death penalty was discussed during a visit by an Israeli delegation in May. The Haaretz newspaper reported on Sep 7 that a delegation comprising representatives from the Israel Prison Service and National Security Ministry made a “secret visit” to Singapore that month.

Thailand | Killer of hotel receptionist sentenced to death

Hua Hin Provincial Court has sentenced a man accused of killing and robbing a hotel employee in January to death, ruling that the crime was so serious and shocking that there were no grounds for leniency despite his guilty plea. The court handed down the sentence on Tuesday in a case involving the killing of a hotel employee during a robbery in Hua Hin district of Prachuap Khiri Khan province.

Arizona AG seeks execution date for man convicted in 1995 trooper killing

Trooper Bob Martin was killed during a traffic stop on the Beeline highway; execution for his killer could be as soon as January PHOENIX (AZFamily)—The Arizona Attorney General is asking for an execution date to be set for a man convicted in the killing of an Arizona State Trooper over 30 years ago. On Aug. 15, 1995, Trooper Bob Martin was shot and killed while performing a traffic stop along the Beeline Highway.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog