Iran is thought to have killed 694 people in the first half of 2015, most for drug-related offences, a number that far exceeds official estimates, revealed a report by Amnesty International on July 23.
Although the Iranian authorities have said 246 people were put to death between January and July, the true toll is much higher – a toll that equates to more than three people a day. If executions remain at their current rate, figures for 2015 will be higher than in years, the human rights charity revealed.
“If Iran’s authorities maintain this horrifying execution rate we are likely to see more than 1,000 state-sanctioned deaths by the year’s end,” said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
Amnesty and the UN’s Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran, Dr Ahmed Shaheed, refer to the surge in executions as a “spree.” The rapporteur reported that there were at least 753 executions in Iran in 2014.
“Iran’s staggering execution toll for the first half of this year paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state carrying out premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale.”
According to the report, executions even continued during the holy month of Ramadan, which goes against established practice in Iran. During that time, at least four people were executed, although numbers could be higher in reality.
The majority of those executed in 2015 were convicted on drug-related charges but the government also sentenced members of ethnic and religious minorities to death, such as Kurdish political prisoners and Sunni Muslims. Charges against them included “enmity against God” and “spreading corruption on earth.”
Iranian Anti-Narcotics Law provides mandatory death sentences for a range of drug-related offences, including trafficking more than 5kg of narcotics derived from opium, or more than 30g of heroin, morphine, cocaine or their chemical derivatives, says Amnesty International.
“For years, Iranian authorities have used the death penalty to spread a climate of fear in a misguided effort to combat drug trafficking, yet there is not a shred of evidence to show that this is an effective method of tackling crime,” said Said Boumedouha. “The use of the death penalty is always abhorrent, but it raises additional concerns in a country like Iran where trials are blatantly unfair.”
In Iran, there is inadequate due process; trials frequently only last a few minutes and detainees are often denied access to lawyers at the investigative stage. Procedures for appealing and being pardoned also fail to live up to international law.
Amnesty also said that the courts that imposed the sentences “completely lack independence and impartiality.”
In March 2015, Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran, Dr Ahmed Shaheed, presented his latest Iran report to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council where he too acknowledged “the surge in executions over the past year.”
“There were at least 753 executions in 2014 and 252 in the last 10 weeks, the highest total recorded in the past 12 years,” said Dr Shaheed. “And, at least 13 juveniles sentenced to death in 2014, which is in violation of international law.”
The UN Special Rapporteur recommended that the Iranian authorities place a moratorium on capital punishment and reconsider using the death penalty for acts not deemed to be criminal offences or more “serious crimes” under international human rights law.
International law restricts the use of the death penalty to only the “most serious crimes,” which is those that involve intentional killing.
“The fact remains that executions for drugs crime, adultery, sodomy, alcohol consumption and vaguely-worded national security offences, such as corruption, are illegal under international law,” he said. “Taking these steps would likely reduce the number of executions in Iran by more than half.”
The death penalty is banned in 140 countries worldwide, with three additional countries joining the ranks of those that have repealed it this year alone, reported Amnesty.
Several thousand people are thought to be on death row in Iran, although exact figures are unknown. The Iranian authorities have, however, revealed that 80 percent of those awaiting execution are convicted of drug-related offences.
In many instances, those waiting on death row are notified of their execution just a few hours beforehand and, in some cases, families learn about the fate of their loved ones days, if not weeks, later, the Amnesty report reveals.
Said Boumedouha added, “The Iranian authorities should be ashamed of executing hundreds of people with complete disregard for the basic safeguards of due process.”
Related articles:
Executions in Iran Highest in 12 Years
Juvenile Criminals at Risk as Executions Soar in Iran
The Value of Human Life: An Interview With Mohammad Mostafaei
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