World News — Executions Surge in Iran in First Half of 2022

Executions have surged in Iran in the first half of 2022, dou­bling the total car­ried out dur­ing the same time span in 2021, human rights advocates report.

Iran Human Rights (IHR), a Norwegian-based non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that pro­motes human rights in Iran, said that at least 251 exe­cu­tions were per­formed from January to June 2022, com­pared to 117 in the first half of 2021. IHR raised con­cerns that the exe­cu­tions were being used as a polit­i­cal tool to intim­i­date anti-gov­ern­ment pro­test­ers, and that eth­nic minori­ties were dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly tar­get­ed for execution.

A major­i­ty of this year’s exe­cu­tions took place after May 7, dur­ing a peri­od of nation­wide protests. ​“Undoubtedly, the wide­spread exe­cu­tions are used by the author­i­ties to instill fear in soci­ety to pre­vent fur­ther anti-gov­ern­ment protests,” IHR Director Mahmoud Amiry-Moghaddam said. ​“Raising the polit­i­cal cost of the exe­cu­tions through pop­u­lar cam­paigns and added inter­na­tion­al pres­sure can stop this wave of exe­cu­tions.” The 81 exe­cu­tions in June were the most in a sin­gle month in five years.

The IHR report also found that 27% of the peo­ple exe­cut­ed in 2022 were mem­bers of the Baluch eth­nic minor­i­ty, an oppressed Sunni Muslim group that makes up just 2 – 6% of Iran’s total pop­u­la­tion. The major­i­ty of Iran’s pop­u­la­tion is Shiite Muslim.

Nada Al-Nashif, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said of the report, ​“The sec­re­tary-gen­er­al is deeply con­cerned by the increase of exe­cu­tions, includ­ing for drug-relat­ed offens­es. The death penal­ty con­tin­ues to be imposed on the basis of charges not amount­ing to ​‘most seri­ous crimes’ and in ways incom­pat­i­ble with fair trial standards.”

Of the 251 peo­ple exe­cut­ed from January through June 2022, 141 were exe­cut­ed for mur­der, 91 for drug charges, 13 for rape, and six for ​“enmi­ty against god,” of which four were polit­i­cal pris­on­ers and two were charged with armed rob­bery. Only 31 of the exe­cu­tions were announced in advance by Iranian offi­cials or domes­tic media. IHR con­firmed the rest through two or more inde­pen­dent sources, but esti­mates that the actu­al num­ber of peo­ple exe­cut­ed is higher.