According to a recent report by Amnesty International, Iran’s prisons have become scenes of widespread mass execution, witnessing the death of at least 853 individuals in 2023 alone.
The London-based organization highlighted the urgent need for stronger international intervention to curb the escalating trend in executions, cautioning that without intervention, the number of hangings could potentially reach into the thousands in the coming years.
Amnesty International characterized the actions of Iranian authorities as a “state-sanctioned killing spree,” transforming prisons into what it described as “killing fields.”
The report revealed a 48 percent increase in executions in 2023 compared to the previous year, with 56 percent of these executions linked to drug-related charges.
In a similar vein, two other non-governmental organizations, Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), published a report corroborating these findings, albeit with a slightly lower figure of 834 executions in 2023.
The spike in executions followed widespread protests that erupted in September 2022, with nine individuals executed in connection to these demonstrations.
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have raised concerns that these executions serve as a means to instill fear in society and suppress further dissent.
Despite international condemnation, Iran has continued its pattern of executions into the current year, with at least 95 recorded executions as of March 20. Amnesty International stressed that these figures likely represent only a portion of the actual death toll.
Amnesty International further denounced the execution of individuals such as 17-year-old Hamidreza Azari, who was hanged in November for a crime committed when he was 16, emphasizing that his age was misrepresented by state media to avoid accountability. Amnesty confirmed this discrepancy through the review of Azari’s birth certificate.
In conclusion, Amnesty International expressed deep concern over Iran’s persistent use of the death penalty as a tool of oppression and urged for concerted global action to address this gross abuse of power.