Iran Hits 1000 Execution Mark, Highest Total in Three Decades

Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) has report­ed that at least 1000 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed in Iran between January 1 and September 23, 2025 — a thir­ty year high. This is the fifth con­sec­u­tive year that Iran has expe­ri­enced an increase in exe­cu­tions, with the biggest year-over-year increase (43%) occur­ring in 2023, in the after­math of the ​“Women, Life, Freedom” nation­wide protests. Most exe­cu­tions con­tin­ue to be car­ried out for offens­es that do not meet the inter­na­tion­al legal thresh­old of a ​“most seri­ous crime,” such as drug-relat­ed offens­es, which com­prise half of all exe­cu­tions. IHRNGO calls the death penal­ty a ​“tool of polit­i­cal repres­sion” by the Iranian gov­ern­ment and has asked for sup­port from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to ​“pre­vent the con­tin­ued killing of the pop­u­la­tion behind bars.” 

So far this year, exe­cu­tions have large­ly been car­ried out for mur­der (43%) and drug-relat­ed offens­es (50%), con­sis­tent with last year’s trends. Secrecy remains per­va­sive, with only 11% of all exe­cu­tions report­ed by offi­cial sources. Of the 500 exe­cu­tions for drug-relat­ed offens­es, none were announced by offi­cial sources; only 3% of drug-relat­ed exe­cu­tions were report­ed by offi­cial sources last year, accord­ing to IHRNGO’s 2024 annual report. 

This record-break­ing exe­cu­tion toll falls short­ly after the three-year anniver­sary of the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, who died on September 16, 2022 while in cus­tody of the government’s moral­i­ty police; her death sparked the ​“Women, Life, Freedom” move­ment, whose protests were met with sys­tem­at­ic gov­ern­ment repres­sion. 

Among these repres­sive mea­sures, IHRNGO argues that the gov­ern­ment has increased its use of the death penal­ty to ​“instill soci­etal fear.” In the three years since Ms. Amini’s death, Iran has exe­cut­ed at least 2,910 peo­ple, includ­ing 83 women, accord­ing to IHRNGO. Of those exe­cu­tions, more than half have been for drug-relat­ed offens­es, which the group says tar­get the ​“most vul­ner­a­ble groups in soci­ety” and dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect the Baluch minor­i­ty. Twelve ​“Women, Life, Freedom” pro­test­ers, as well as 37 pris­on­ers of con­science have also been among those executed. 

In announc­ing the 1000 exe­cu­tion mile­stone, IHRNGO specif­i­cal­ly called upon the UN Human Rights Council’s Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFMI) to inves­ti­gate the nation’s use of the death penal­ty as a crime against human­i­ty, ​“giv­en the scale, sys­tem­at­ic nature and polit­i­cal func­tion of the exe­cu­tions to intim­i­date and cre­ate soci­etal fear.” IHRNGO Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam explains that “[t]he wide­spread, arbi­trary exe­cu­tions of pris­on­ers with­out due process and fair tri­al rights amount to crimes against human­i­ty and must be placed at the top of the inter­na­tion­al community’s agen­da regard­ing the Islamic Republic.” Established in November 2022, in response to the repres­sion of the ​“Women, Life, Freedom” protests, the FFMI’s first report, released in March 2024, rec­om­mend­ed a halt to all exe­cu­tions and the release of arbi­trar­i­ly detained prisoners. 

Other inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions have also raised seri­ous con­cerns about Iran’s aggres­sive use of the death penal­ty. Amnesty International’s char­ac­ter­izes Iran’s ​“ongo­ing exe­cu­tion cri­sis” as hav­ing ​“reached hor­rif­ic pro­por­tions” and says the death penal­ty has been ​“weaponized” since the 2022 ​“Women, Life, Freedom” protests as a ​“tool of oppres­sion.” On August 11, 2025, the American Bar Association issued a state­ment call­ing on the U.S. Government and inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to ​“deplore and con­demn per­sis­tent and inten­si­fied vio­la­tions of human rights” car­ried out by the Iranian Government, includ­ing using the death penal­ty for offens­es that fail to meet the inter­na­tion­al thresh­old of a ​“most serious crime.”