Death Penalty News

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); 29 January 2026: Weeks after the violent crackdown on nationwide protests which resulted in thousands of people being killed, injured or detained, Iran remains under internet restrictions and a heavy security presence in major cities. There is serious concern regarding the condition of thousands of protesters who are incommunicado following arrest or have been reported missing. Detained protesters have been denied access to their lawyers of their choice, with many held in undisclosed locations. While state media have confirmed the arrests of 3,000 protesters, IHRNGO estimates that at least 40,000 people, including children, have been detained in relation to the nationwide protests. These arrests reportedly took place during street protests, following identification and raids on people’s homes or at checkpoints. 

“What did you come to us for? You came to protect us? From whom? You ‘protected’ me from my husband, whom you killed.” A 21-year-old Russian soldier was found guilty Monday of killing an unarmed civilian in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial since Russia’s invasion. He was sentenced to life in prison. A court in Kyiv handed down the verdict after Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin pleaded guilty last week to killing a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the northeastern Sumy province but said he was following orders. Shishimarin pleaded guilty to killing 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov, who was pushing his bicycle near the village of Chupakhivka, near the Russian border, during the early days of the invasion in late February. Shelipov “died on the spot just a few meters from his home,” according to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova. Shishimarin’s charge, “violation of the rules and customs of war," is punishable by 10 years to life imprisonment. Shelipov’s widow last week said she would ...

While Franco has lain in splendour 37 miles (60km) outside Madrid, until recently, an estimated 140,000 of his opponents lay in unmarked graves around the country, buried where they were summarily executed during and after the civil war. The last of these executions was carried out in 1975. Spain has taken another step towards dealing with the legacy of the civil war after the government approved the exhumation of the remains of Francisco Franco, which have lain in the Valley of the Fallen mausoleum near Madrid since his death in 1975. The council of ministers voted in favour of the move, which was opposed by the rightwing People’s and Citizens parties. However, the decree only needed a simple majority to pass. The Socialist party of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, the leftwing Podemos and the Catalan and Basque nationalist parties all voted in favour. The decree means that after a dispute lasting many years, the removal of the former dictator’s remains will go ahead,...

BAGHDAD : Eight Iraqis from the same family risk being sentenced to death after admitting to involvement in killing 370 people while members of the Islamic State group, the judiciary said Wednesday. The men face charges under Iraq's anti-terror legislation over the killings at Khasfah, a sinkhole in northern Iraq just eight kilometres from Mosul, the former capital of IS's self-declared "caliphate". "The eight terrorists arrested have admitted to participating in the Khasfah massacre," said Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdel Sattar Bayraqdar. "They participated in the execution of 370 civilians and members of security forces and the arrest of 400 people in Mosul," who were then held in IS jails, he added in a statement. After IS overran Mosul in 2014, Khasfah became one of Iraq's largest mass graves as jihadists carried out a series of executions at the site. Witnesses said the victims were blindfolded and had their han...

A new investigative report was released by Amnesty International on Monday. It looks at the ways that signs of mass graves of political prisoners who were executed in Iran in 1988 are being wiped out. The report states, "Today, it is still not known exactly how many prisoners were extra-judicially executed in 1988, although minimum estimates are between 4,000 and 5,000." AP reports, "International rights groups estimate as many as 5,000 people were executed, while the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq puts the number at 30,000." Mass graves have been gradually leveled to escape any possible future accountability, report adds, "The account identifies 7 suspected or confirmed mass grave sites that have faced destruction between 2003 and 2017. They are located in or near Behesht Reza cemetery in Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi province; Behesht Abad cemetery in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province; Vadieh Rahmat cemetery in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan province; Golestan Javid cemetery...

The Islamic State group once drew recruits from near and far with promises of paradise but now bodies of jihadists lie in mass graves or at the mercy of wild dogs as its "caliphate" collapses. Flies buzz around human remains poking through the dusty earth in the Iraqi town of Dhuluiyah, 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of Baghdad, at a hastily-dug pit containing the bodies of dozens of IS fighters killed in 2015. "They should have ended up in the stomachs of stray dogs," local police officer Mohammed al-Juburi told AFP. "We buried them here not out of love but because we wanted to avoid diseases." At one stage, IS ruthlessly wielded power over a vast swathe of territory straddling Iraq and Syria, but a military onslaught on multiple fronts has seen its fiefdom shrink to a last few pockets. Since the launch in 2014 of air strikes in Iraq and Syria against the group, a US-led coalition says around 80,000 jihadists have been killed.  ...

NORTH KOREA carries out public executions on river banks and at school grounds and marketplaces for charges such as stealing copper from factory machines, distributing media from South Korea and prostitution, a report issued on Wednesday said. The report, by a Seoul-based non-government group, said the often extra-judicial decisions for public executions are frequently influenced by “bad” family background or a government campaign to discourage certain behaviour. The Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) said its report was based on interviews with 375 North Korean defectors from the isolated state over a period of two years. Reuters could not independently verify the testimony of defectors in the report. The TJWG is made up of human rights activists and researchers and is led by Lee Younghwan, who has worked as an advocate for human rights in North Korea. It receives most of its funding from the US-based National Endowment for Democracy, which in turn is funded ...