In a “horrifying escalation” of its use of the death penalty, Iran executed at least 975 people last year, according to two human rights organizations on Thursday.
According to the French organization Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) and Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), the number was the highest since IHR started keeping track of executions in Iran in 2008.
In a joint report, they accused Iran of using the death penalty as a “central tool of political oppression” and stated that the figure “reveals a horrifying escalation in the use of the death penalty by the Islamic republic in 2024.”
“These executions are part of the Islamic republic’s war against its own people to maintain its grip on power,” IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.
“Five people were executed on average every single day in the last three months of the year as the threat of war between Iran and Israel escalated.”
According to the study, the number from last year was a 17 percent increase over the 834 executions that were documented in 2023.
Four of the 975 persons who were executed were hanged in public, and 31 of them were women—the greatest number in the previous 17 years.
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