No fewer than 901 people were executed in Iran in 2024, including about 40 in a single week in December, according to the United Nations human rights chief.
“It is deeply disturbing that we are once again seeing a year-on-year increase in the number of people subjected to the death penalty in Iran,” said Volker Türk. “It is time for Iran to stop this escalating wave of executions.”
The total execution count marks the highest recorded in nine years and represents a 6% increase from 2023, when 853 executions were reported.
According to the BBC, most of the executions were related to drug crimes, but the UN noted that dissidents and people associated with the 2022 protests also faced execution. A notable increase in the number of women executed was also reported.
Türk urged Iranian authorities to end the use of the death penalty. “The death penalty is incompatible with the fundamental right to life and poses the unacceptable risk of executing innocent people. And, to be clear, it can never be imposed for conduct protected by international human rights law,” he said.
A UN spokesperson confirmed that the figures come from several reliable sources, including the Human Rights Activists of Iran News Agency (HRANA), Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Hengaw.
On Monday, the IHR reported that at least 31 women were executed in 2024, the highest number recorded in 17 years of tracking the death penalty. Among them was Leila Ghaemi, convicted of strangling her husband after discovering that he and his friends had sexually assaulted her young daughter. Another woman, Parvin Mousavi, was executed for drug trafficking after unknowingly transporting morphine.
Activists argue that drug-related crimes do not meet the international legal threshold for the death penalty, which should only be imposed for “the most serious crimes.”
A report by Hengaw, a Kurdish human rights group, revealed that more than half of those executed in 2024 were from Iran's ethnic minorities, including 183 Kurds. The UN fact-finding mission on Iran also highlighted that ethnic and religious minorities had been disproportionately affected by the government's crackdown on dissent since the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” protests.
HRANA also documented the execution of five juvenile offenders, despite international law prohibiting the death penalty for those under 18 years of age at the time of the alleged crime.
According to Amnesty International, Iran accounted for 74% of all executions recorded globally in 2023, excluding China, where the number of executions remains classified.
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