Amnesty says Iran executes 481 people in 2023
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Amnesty International called on Thursday for a robust international action to halt a horrifying surge in executions that saw Iran’s prisons transformed into sites of mass killings in 2023.
At least, 481 executions – more than half of the total 853 executions recorded in 2023 – were carried out for drug-related offences, according to Amnesty International .
Iran’s Relentless Execution Crisis since 2022 Uprising reveals how the Iranian authorities have intensified their use of the death penalty to instill fear among the population and tighten their grip on power, the source added.
The number of executions in 2023 is the highest recorded since 2015 and marks a 48% increase from 2022 and a 172% increase from 2021.
Iran’s killing spree is continuing into 2024, with at least 95 recorded executions by March20.
The spike in executions in 2023 is driven largely by a distressing lethal shift in Iran’s anti-narcotics policy after Ebrahim Raisi’s rise to presidency and the appointment of Gholamhossein Eje’i as the Head of the Judiciary, both in 2021.
These official positions have translated into a horrifying upward trajectory since 2021, with 481 drug-related executions in 2023, constituting 56% of the total number of executions. This marks an 89% increase from 2022 when 255 people were executed for drug-related offences and a 264% increase from 2021 when 132 people were executed for drug-related offences.
The rise in executions has led to prisoners on death row going on hunger strike and publicly pleading for interventions to stop their executions.