Iran is carrying out executions “at an alarming rate,” putting to death at least 419 people in the first seven months of the year, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a new report, which shows a 30 percent increase in capital punishment over the same period in 2022.
The rate of executions in Iran has been rising sharply, particularly in the wake of widespread protests after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Tehran in 2022 while in the custody of the notorious Iranian morality police for an alleged hijab infraction.
The authorities have responded to the unrest with a crackdown that has left hundreds dead and thousands injured.
Guterres said in a report to the UN General Assembly that seven men were executed in relation to or for participating in protests sparked by Amini’s death.
In all seven cases, information received “consistently indicated that the judicial proceedings did not fulfill the requirements for due process and a fair trial under international human rights law,” he said.
The data was first published in October in a report by Javaid Rehman, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran.
It said that there was evidence of “confessions extracted through torture and of the death penalty having been implemented after court proceedings that substantially violated the right to fair trial.”
The UN secretary-general also cited information received by the UN rights agency that between September 17, 2022, and February 8, 2023, an estimated 20,000 individuals were arrested for participating in the protests.
“It is particularly concerning that most of the individuals arrested may have been children, given that the reported average age of those arrested was estimated to be 15 years, according to the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,” Guterres said.
Guterres cited reported instances of disproportionate and excessive use of force against protesters, and beatings and sexual violence after they were put in detention, as well as psychological abuse.
“Access to adequate and timely legal representation was frequently denied, with reports of coerced confessions, which may have been obtained as a result of torture,” he also said.
Guterres expressed deep concern “at the lack of transparent and independent investigations into reported human rights violations, in particular in the context of the latest nationwide protests.”
He said the continued targeting of lawyers is also impeding accountability for past and ongoing violations.
The secretary-general also said that 239 people -- more than half of those executed in the first seven months of 2023 -- were reportedly put to death for drug-related offenses.
The October report by the UN special rapporteur on Iran said that the number of those executed from ethnic minority communities, in particular the Baluch minority, remained “disproportionately high,” especially for drug-related or security-related offenses.
Amnesty International has said the regime in Tehran executes more people than any other country in the world other than China, and decried a situation that has turned the country’s prisons into “killing fields.”
The U.S.-based Center for Human Rights in Iran has said politically motivated executions in Iran are increasing "dramatically" as authorities use capital punishment as a “tactic of intimidation and retribution.”