The regime in Tehran has executed 338 of its citizens so far this year, including at least 29 people in two prisons on Tuesday, according to a new report by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights.
"The Islamic Republic, by exploiting global attention on its tension with Israel, is currently engaged in mass killing prisoners and intensifying the suppression in Iran,” IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said in a statement on Wednesday.
Among those executed this year were five individuals for allegedly spying for Israel and five who were identified as being Kurdish political dissidents.
Tuesday’s victims also included, Kurdish-Iranian Reza Rasaei, who was accused of murdering an IRGC officer during the 2022 nationwide protests over the in-custody death of Mahsa Amini. The 34-year-old’s attorney maintains that his client denied the charges against him and, while detained, was forced to undergo repeated beatings, electrocution, suffocation, and sexual violence.
Rasaei was reportedly the first prisoner to be killed over the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising since 'reformist’ President Masoud Pezeshkian entered office.
The summary from IHR criticized the government’s judicial authorities, accusing them of convicting capital crime defendants with confessions obtained under torture and targeting the country’s ethnic minorities.
In addition to the brutal and persuasive actions of the regime’s investigators, human rights organizations have long denounced the Islamic Republic for imposing most of their death sentences for violations that international standards would not warrant.
Examples of non-traditional capital offenses in the theocracy include adultery, apostacy, drug-related crime, fornication, homosexuality, robbery, political dissidence, and repeated alcohol consumption.
The NGO claimed that although the macabre numbers for 2024 appear to be trending upwards after an apparent lull in enforcement following the passing of former President Ebrahim Raisi, they are still projected to be lower than in 2023, when more than 800 people were identified by various rights groups as having been executed by the regime.
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