The Judiciary of the Islamic Republic Executed at Least 10 Prisoners

Human rights sources reported on Thursday, December 27, that the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic executed at least 10 prisoners, including two Afghan nationals, in the cities of Shiraz, Gonabad, Jiroft, and Khorramabad. According to the report from the Human Rights Activists in Iran, at least three prisoners were executed at dawn on Thursday, December 27, in Jiroft prison by the judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic. The identities of the three prisoners executed in connection with drug-related offenses were announced as Asad Amini, Saman Fakhri, and Jasim Jahantigh, who is an Afghan national. According to the Halosh website, judicial authorities executed four prisoners at Gonabad prison in Razavi Khorasan province on the same morning. The identities of the executed prisoners were identified as Abdullah Naroui, 35 years old and a father of two, Hossein Salarzahi, 45 years old and a father of three, Javad Ghafari, 35 years old, and Ahmad Ghafran, 43 years old, with reports indicating that three of them were executed 'without a last visit with their families.' These four were sentenced to death in separate cases related to drug offenses by the Gonabad Revolutionary Court and had been transferred to solitary confinement two days prior, on Tuesday, for the execution. The Iran Human Rights Organization also announced that at dawn on Wednesday, two prisoners named Hamed Ranjbar, 40 years old, charged with drug-related offenses, and Katib Seydian, an Afghan national charged with 'murder,' were executed in Adelabad prison in Shiraz. Additionally, the Human Rights Activists in Iran reported on Thursday that a prisoner named Yarahossein Shakouri was executed by the judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic in Khorramabad prison in connection with the charge of 'murder during a collective fight.' The issuance and execution of death sentences under the title 'Qisas Nafs' in the Islamic Republic of Iran occur under conditions where, according to government laws, intentional murder is not graded, and 'any type of murder, regardless of severity, weakness, and motivation of the accused, leads to a death sentence.' Although the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic does not officially announce executions in many cases, independent human rights organizations have documented that the number of executions in Iran indicates the highest global ranking for violations of the right to life by the government. Furthermore, see: The increase in executions globally; the Iranian government is at the top of the list. Previously, May Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, criticized the human rights situation and the increasing number of executions in the prisons of the Islamic Republic, calling for a reduction in the issuance of death sentences in Iran. Executions of prisoners related to drug offenses have continuously increased by the judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic over the past four years, with reports from the Iran Human Rights Organization indicating that the number of executions last year reached '471 executions,' an 84% increase compared to the previous year.