Blindfolded Iranian convicted man being escorted by officials and security to be prepared for his execution in public in the northern city of Nour, Iran. FILE/AP.
Tehran: Iran hogged most attention this year after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who was detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly violating the stringent dress code for women. Protests continue unabated in Iran and now an alarming report has come to fore which states that more than 500 people have been executed so far this year in the country.
According to a report by Norway-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR), “The number of people executed in 2022 has now surpassed 500, the highest rate in five years.”
The report further said that four men – Hossein Ordukhanzadeh, Shahin Imani Mahmoudabad, Milad Ashrafi Atbatan and Manouchehr Bejandi – have been executed for security-related charges including collaborating with Israeli intelligence services. “They were executed within seven months of arrest,” it stated.
IHR said that the list includes the recent hanging of a woman in Dastgerd in central Iran, who was accused of murdering her father-in-law.
A report by news agency AFP quoted IHR saying that Iran, so far, has executed at least 504 people in 2022 and it was still working to confirm the additional cases of individuals said to have been hanged.
The shocking number of execution in Iran comes amid mounting concern that the authorities will make extensive use of death penalty against people involved in the anti-regime protests that erupted in the country since September.
Regarding death penalties issued over the ongoing hijab protests in Iran, IHR said 26 people, including three minors, are currently facing charges that could see them executed.
As per its data, at least 333 people were executed in 2021, a 25 per cent increase compared to 267 in 2020.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International put the number of recorded executions in Iran in 2021 at 314, saying that it was higher than in any other country worldwide.
It further noted that such data is not available for China, where it believes annual executions goes up to thousands.
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