New DPIC Podcast: Dr. Roya Boroumand discusses capital punishment in Iran

In the August 2023 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of DPIC, speaks with Dr. Roya Boroumand (pic­tured), Executive Director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran. A spe­cial­ist in Iran’s post-World War 2 his­to­ry, Dr. Boroumand pro­vides his­tor­i­cal con­text for ongo­ing events and dis­cuss­es the cur­rent increase in executions.

“My under­stand­ing as some­one who has doc­u­ment­ed exe­cu­tions since the ear­ly days of the rev­o­lu­tion is that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for the Islamic Republic author­i­ties is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a tool for crime con­trol, but it’s rather a means to spread fear in soci­ety,” states Dr. Boroumand. She explains that the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment since the 1979 rev­o­lu­tion has been ​“gen­er­al­ly extreme­ly high” and ​“polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed,” often used by lead­ers as ​“as a means to estab­lish them­selves and elim­i­nate poten­tial rivals or threats” and maintain power.

Over the last year and a half Iran has aggres­sive­ly used the death penal­ty. In 2022, Iran expe­ri­enced an 83% increase in exe­cu­tions from the pri­or year, lead­ing the world in known exe­cu­tions with 576, accord­ing to Amnesty International. In the first half of 2023 alone, 354 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed, mark­ing a 36% increase from the same peri­od last year, accord­ing to Norway-based Iran Human Rights’ mid-year report. As of August 31, 2023, the exe­cu­tion count is at 489. 

“I believe that in times of insta­bil­i­ty and when Iran’s lead­ers have to com­pro­mise inter­na­tion­al­ly, which they see as a sign of weak­ness, they feel like they have to remind cit­i­zens that they do and will kill,” says Dr. Boroumand, who sup­ports this the­o­ry with past and present-day exam­ples. Most recent­ly, nation­wide protests were sparked in mid-September 2022 fol­low­ing the death of Mahsa Jina Amini while in cus­tody of the moral­i­ty police. The protests ​“cen­tered around women’s rights ini­tial­ly,” says Dr. Boroumand, ​“and evolved to ques­tion the legit­i­ma­cy of cler­i­cal rule as a whole and cre­at­ed a new con­text and chal­lenged the state nar­ra­tive, …its pop­u­lar basis, and its own legit­i­ma­cy.” The protests were diverse both geo­graph­i­cal­ly and demo­graph­i­cal­ly, cre­at­ing ​“a major chal­lenge to the state.”

As for the groups most at risk for exe­cu­tions, Dr. Boroumand explains that ​“exe­cu­tions tar­get the rel­a­tive­ly poor and vul­ner­a­ble pro­test­ers, the ones with­out strong fam­i­ly and civ­il soci­ety con­nec­tions.” She says: ​“Politically moti­vat­ed exe­cu­tions and exe­cu­tions on drug charges” – which account­ed for 44% of exe­cu­tions in 2022 – ​“specif­i­cal­ly tend to affect the poor and minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties such as the Baluchis, the Arabs, the Kurds, who are very dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ed… [O]ne analy­sis would be that exe­cu­tions of mem­bers of those com­mu­ni­ties have a low­er polit­i­cal cost for the state inter­nal­ly, inside the country.”

Although Iran has received inter­na­tion­al con­dem­na­tion over recent exe­cu­tions, Dr. Boroumand empha­sizes that there should be increased media cov­er­age of case details. Furthermore, she says that ​“peo­ple who…have no qualms in killing their own peo­ple will have no qualms killing oth­er peo­ple,” high­light­ing that ​“there is a strong rela­tion­ship, inter­con­nec­tion between what hap­pens inside Iran and what the Iranian lead­ers do out­side Iran.” She adds that ​“for­eign pol­i­cy and the inter­nal pol­i­tics are not separated…And I think that as long as these two are con­sid­ered as sep­a­rate issues and dis­cussed and nego­ti­at­ed sep­a­rate­ly, we will have what we have had in the last 40 years.”