Iran hanged at least 582 prisoners in 2022 - up 75% in a year - using its 'execution machine' to spread fear among protesters
- There were at least 582 executions in Iran last year - the highest since 2015
- Authorities cracked down on those protesting against death of Mahsa Amini
- Amini died in custody after being arrested for allegedly breaching dress code
Human rights groups have condemned Iran's 'execution machine' which is spreading fear among protesters after revealing at least 582 prisoners were hanged in 2022.
The shocking new figures show Iran hanged 75 per cent more people in 2022 than the year before, according to the report by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM).
The figure of 582 executions is well above the 333 carried out in 2021.
Protests and riots have engulfed Iran since 22-year-old ethnic Kurd Mahsa Amini died in police custody in Tehran in September 2022. She had been arrested for allegedly breaching the country's strict dress codes for women.
The Iranian state has sparked outrage both nationally and internationally for its barbaric response to protesters in which four men were hanged in protest-related cases.
A shock report by human rights groups found Iran hanged at least 582 prisoners in 2022 - up 75 per cent in a year. Pictured: Protests against the Iranian regime in London
The figure of 582 executions, which is the highest in Iran since 2015, is well above the 333 carried out in 2021. Pictured: Protests in Tehran on October 27
The Iranian state sparked outrage both nationally and internationally for its barbaric response to protesters Pictured: A woman protests in Lyon, France, in January
IHR director Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam said that while the international outcry was keeping protest-related executions in check, Iran was pressing ahead with executions on other charges to intimidate the general population.
'The international reactions to the death sentences against protesters have made it difficult for the Islamic Republic to proceed with their executions,' he said.
'To compensate, and in order to spread fear among people, the authorities have intensified the execution for non-political charges. These are the low-cost victims of the Islamic Republic's execution machine.'
The damning report said that after the four men were executed on charges related to the protests, one hundred more protesters still risked execution after being sentenced to death or facing charges that carry the death penalty.
Earlier this month, horrifying footage showed a man pouring yoghurt over the heads of two Iranian women who entered a shop without wearing hijabs. They were then arrested for flouting the country's strict dress code.
And last month, rights group Amnesty International reported that children as young as 12 have been subjected to rape, electrocution and flogging for their involvement in the nationwide protests.
The latest report on executions has also expressed alarm over a sharp rise in the number of drug-related hangings after the protests erupted.
More than half of those executed after the start of the protests, and 44 percent of the 582 executions recorded in 2022, were on drug-related charges.
Protests and riots have engulfed Iran since 22-year-old ethnic Kurd Mahsa Amini (pictured) died in police custody
A female Iranian woman holds up a shirt for Amini during one of Iran's World Cup fixtures in Qatar in December
This was a more than double the number in 2021, and ten times higher than the number of drug-related executions in 2020, it said.
A fall in the number of drug-related executions - driven by 2017 amendments to the anti-narcotics law - had been behind a drop in the overall number of executions in Iran up to 2021.
The rights groups lamented what they said was a lack of reaction from the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) and its donor states to this 'dramatic surge'.
'Lack of reaction by the UNODC and donor countries to the reversal of these reforms (of 2017) sends the wrong signal to the Iranian authorities,' ECPM director Raphael Chenuil-Hazan said.
The report said members of the mainly Sunni Muslim Baluch minority accounted for 30 percent of all executions across the country, while only representing 2-6 per cent of Iran's population.
Image on Twitter reportedly shows an unveiled woman standing on top of a vehicle as thousands make their way towards Aichi cemetery in Saqez, Mahsa Amini's home town in the western Iranian province of Kurdistan, to mark 40 days since her death
The numbers of ethnic minority Kurds and Arabs executed were also disproportionate, especially for drug crimes, the report said.
'The death penalty is part of the systematic discrimination and extensive repression ethnic minorities of Iran are subjected to,' it said.
The most executions - 288, or 49 percent of all executions - were for murder charges, the highest in more than 15 years, it said.
Two people, including protester Majidreza Rahnavard, were hanged in public, the report said. At least three juvenile offenders were among those executed while at least 16 women were hanged.
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