Iran Human Rights Condemns Man Public Hanging with Children Present

Public hanging of Sajad Molayi Hakani in Beyrom 19 AUG 2025

Iran Human Rights (IHNRGO); August 19, 2025: State media reported the public hanging of an unnamed man in the small city of Beyrom. IHRNGO has established his identity as Sajad Molayi Hakani. Video footage shows the presence of many children amongst the spectators.

This is the sixth public hanging in 2025 and the second to feature a significant number of children. Referring to the Islamic Republic’s disregard for its international treaty obligations, especially the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which Iran has ratified, IHRNGO urges the international community to take a strong stance against public executions and intensify efforts to end the death penalty in Iran.

IHRNGO Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “The death penalty, especially when carried out publicly, is not only cruel and degrading, but also promotes a culture of violence. The authorities use these executions to intimidate people and instill a sense of helplessness as a means of preventing dissent. The international community, particularly countries maintaining diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic, must condemn executions in Iran, and public hangings in particular, in the strongest possible terms.”

According to the Judiciary’s Mizan News Agency, a man was publicly hanged in Beyrom, Fars province, on 19 August 2025. The unnamed man was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) by Branch 1 of the Fars Criminal Court for the murder of a mother and her three children, with the complicity of his wife in the course of a robbery last October.

IHRNGO has established their identities as Sajad Molayi Hakani and Mahsa Akbari.

Sadrallah Rajaei, the head of the Fars provincial judiciary announced news of her execution within the coming days, noting: “The qisas sentence of the second defendant in this case who is the wife of the first defendant, will be carried out in prison in the presence of the victims’ next of kin.”

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.

The authorities use these executions to intimidate people and instill a sense of helplessness as a means of preventing dissent.

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 seven months of 2025, at least 310 people were executed for murder charges in Iran.

Video footage published by official media show the presence of many children at the scene of the public hanging.

Public hangings are a tool of creating societal fear and negatively impact the mental health of those in attendance and are a violation of Iran’s CRC (Convention on the Rights of the Child) obligations.

The Islamic Republic not only fails to provide psychological support to children harmed by such spectacles of violence, but does not even recognise the harm itself.

Public executions are almost always officially reported, although the names of those executed are often omitted or replaced with initials. In cases where official sources do provide the names, photos and videos of the executions are also published.

This is the sixth public execution recorded in Iran in 2025.

Over the past decade, 2021 was the only year in which no public executions were carried out in the Islamic Republic, and the reason was the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, August 19, 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

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