Overview

• At least 612 people were executed in the first half of 2025, more than twice the count for the same period in 2024, and another 48 have been sentenced with 12 at imminent risk
• UN High Commissioner Volker Türk called the surge “alarming” and urged Iran to immediately suspend all executions
• Execution procedures frequently occur behind closed doors and routinely violate fair trial standards, disproportionately affecting ethnic and religious minorities
• More than 40 percent of those executed were convicted on drug offences, while vague charges such as “enmity against God” are used to silence critics
• The Guardian Council is pushing to extend capital punishment to certain online communications and cooperation with foreign media, a move defended as legal by Tehran