Iran executed at least seven more people in the early hours of May 10 despite mounting criticism from governments and rights activists over Tehran's frequent usage of the death penalty.
According to the judiciary's Mizan news agency, three people executed at a prison near the capital on May 10 were identified as members of the "largest cocaine distribution cartel in Iran.”
Human rights websites have identified the individuals as Hossein Panjak, Abdulhossein Emami Moghaddam, and Babak Aghaei. The Iran Human Rights Organization and the rights group Hengaw also reported that they were sentenced to death in connection with drug-related crimes.
In a separate case, four people were executed at the Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj on May 10 on charges of "violent rape."
The executions occurred hours after families and relatives of prisoners who are scheduled to be executed gathered late on May 9 to protest against the death penalty. Social media reports indicate that the rally was met with gunfire and tear gas by security forces.
The recent spike in executions has drawn international attention and condemnation. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk on May 9 called the statistics "frightening" and demanded a halt to executions by the Islamic republic. He said Iran has executed an average of 10 people per week this year.
Human rights activists say authorities in Iran are using the executions to try to instill fear in society rather than to combat crime. The recent increase in executions, especially those related to charges of "insulting the Prophet," has sparked widespread anger among Iranian citizens.
In the past week, Iran has admitted to executing two men -- Yousef Mehrdad and Sadrollah Fazeli Zare -- who had been sentenced to death for using social media to promote "atheism and insulting religious and Islamic sanctities," as well as Habib Chaab, a Swedish-Iranian dissident who went missing from a Turkish airport two years ago before turning up in Iranian custody, accused of terrorism.
According to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights organization, Tehran has executed one person every six hours in the past two weeks.
Iranian opposition activist Hamed Esmaeilion reacted to the rise in death sentences "of innocent people caught under the oppressor's blades" in Iran by calling for people to "return to the streets."
Iran Human Rights, which maintains a running log of executions in the country, said 205 people have been executed in Iran so far this year, most of them on drug charges. Half of the more than 40 people killed in the past two weeks belonged to the Baluch ethnic minority, according to the rights group.
In March, Amnesty International accused Iran of executing members of ethnic minorities as a "tool of repression."
Maulvi Abdul Hamid, the influential Sunni Baluch leader of Iran, last week condemned the wave of executions, saying that the Islamic republic had made capital punishment an "art."