government: theocratic republic

state of civil and political rights: Not free

constitution: 2-3 December 1979; revised 1989 to expand powers of the presidency and eliminate the prime ministership

legal system: based on Sharia law system

legislative system: Unicameral Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majles-e-Shura-ye-Eslami)

judicial system: Supreme Court

religion: Shia majority; 10% Sunni; Christian, Jewish, Baha'i and Zoroastrian minorities

death row:

year of last executions: 0-0-0

death sentences: 17

executions: 616

situation:
In accordance with Article 4 of the Iranian Constitution, Islamic law is “the essential source for all the branches of legislation”, including civil and penal legislation.
Offences punishable by death include: murder; armed robbery; rape; blasphemy; apostasy; adultery; prostitution; homosexuality; drug-related offences and plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime, kidnapping, treason, espionage, terrorism, economic crimes, military offences.
Iranian law imposes the death penalty for possession of more than 30 grams of heroin or five kilos of opium. Iranian authorities say that most of the people put to death in the country are convicted of drug-related crimes, but human rights observers believe that many of the people put to death in Iran for ordinary crimes, particularly drug crimes, may well be in fact political opponents.
Under Iran's strict Islamic law, consuming alcohol is forbidden for Muslims and usually punishable by lashes or fines. An offender caught for a third time, however, can be sentenced to death.
According to the fifth annual report of Iran Human Rights (IHR) on the death penalty in Iran, in 2012 the Islamic Republic carried out at least 580 executions, a number among the highest in more than 15 years: 294 execution cases (51%) were reported by official Iranian sources (websites of the Iranian Judiciary, national Iranian broadcasting network, and official or state-run news agencies and newspapers); 286 cases (49%) included in the annual numbers were reported by unofficial sources (other human rights NGOs or IHR’s sources inside Iran).
IHR emphasizes that the actual number of executions is probably much higher than the figures included in its annual report. At least 240 additional executions were not included in the report, due to difficulties in confirming some of the details. In fact, only 85 out of the 325 estimated secret executions in Vakilabad Prison were included in the 2012 report.
In 2011, on the basis of these same sources, Iran Human Rights had estimated at least 676 executions, 416 of them reported by official Iranian sources. In 2010, IHR had reported at least 646 executions, 312 of them by official sources. In 2009, IHR had estimated at least 402 executions, 339 of them reported by official media. In 2008, at least 350 people were put to death (282 of them reported by the media).
According to IHR, only a small part of those who were reported executed by official Iranian media in 2012 were identified by full name, and an even smaller portion by age.
According to the official sources, a majority of those who were executed were convicted of drug-related offences (73%), followed by rape (16%), murder (6%), Moharebeh (waging war against God) (3%), and armed robbery (2%).
According to Human Rights Activists in Iran, at least 587 people were executed in 2012, including 59 people hanged in public. Iran’s judiciary reported 54% of these executions and human rights entities provided reports on the remaining 46%. Most of the executions were carried out in Tehran (16%). In comparison to 2011, Iran witnessed a 9% rise in executions.
Hanging is the preferred method with which to apply Sharia law. Hanging is often carried out by crane or low platforms to draw out the pain of death. The noose is made from heavy rope or steel wire and is placed around the neck in such a fashion as to crush the larynx causing extreme pain and prolonging the death of the condemned. Hanging is often carried out in public and combined with supplementary punishments such as flogging and the amputation of limbs before the actual execution.
On 12 July 2011, a Japanese company said it has ended contracts with the Iranian government following a report that its cranes have been used for public executions. Just days after United Against Nuclear Iran President Mark Wallace penned a 6 July opinion article in the Los Angeles Times stating that the Japanese crane company Tadano was one of several selling cranes to Iran, the company announced it would cease making further Iranian deals. “No one should be having their products going to Iran, particularly given the Iranian regime’s history of misusing products and money to fund terrorism,” UANI communications director Nathan Carleton said. UANI has launched a Cranes Campaign, publishing on its website a list of eight international companies that send crane resources to Iran, with photos of the cranes being used as execution devices.
On 8 August 2011, another Japanese crane manufacturer, UNIC, announced the end of its business in Iran, joining Tadano and Terex in pulling out of Iran following UANI’s Cranes Campaign. UNIC officials wrote to UANI, stating that UNIC will not sell any more products to Iran, or derive any revenue from Iran, and “will not accept orders for any of our products if such products are known to be destined for Iran.”
In April 2013, the Guardian Council of Iran reinserted execution by stoning for those convicted of adultery into a previous version of the new penal code that had omitted it. On 2 November 2012, the Melli-Mazhabi website reported that four women had been stoned to death during the previous days, although the Tehran forensic medicine department denied the report.
For the execution by stoning, the condemned person is wrapped head to foot in white shrouds and buried in a pit. A woman is buried up to her armpits, while a man is buried up to his waist. A truckload of rocks is brought to the site and court-appointed officials, or in some cases ordinary citizens approved by the authorities, carry out the stoning. Article 104 of the Penal Code states that "the stones should not be too large so that the person dies on being hit by one or two of them." If the condemned person somehow manages to survive the stoning, he or she will be imprisoned for as long as 15 years but will not be executed.
Since the 2009 post-election protests in Iran, the number of executions, particularly public executions, has risen dramatically. According to Iran Human Rights, in 2012 there were at least 60 public executions, a number six times higher than numbers from 2009, when at least 12 people were hanged in public places. In 2010, at least 19 people were hanged publicly. In 2011, public executions have more than tripled, with at least 65 people being executed in public. The trend has continued in 2013. Just in January and February 2013 alone, at least 20 people were hanged in public. The number of public hangings and other public punishments, including flogging and amputations, increased significantly at the approach of the presidential elections of June 2013. As of 16 May, at least 32 public executions were held.
At least 9 women were executed in 2012. Executions of 7 of these women were not announced by the Iranian authorities.
The execution of child offenders continued into 2012 and 2013, in open violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which it is a co-signatory. An alleged juvenile offender was executed in public in March 2012, according to Amnesty International. Another two possible minor offenders were executed 2013 (in January and February). At least 4 people were hanged in 2011, after being convicted of offences they had allegedly committed when they were under the age of 18. At least 2 juvenile offenders were hanged in Iran in 2010 and at least 5 in 2009.
The Iranian regime claimed that, under the new penal code, the execution of juvenile offenders has been banned. However, under Articles 145 and 146 of the new penal code, the age of criminal responsibility is still “puberty” (nine lunar years for girls and fifteen lunar years for boys). In fact, article 90 of the new penal code stipulates that legally “mature” individuals under eighteen who are convicted of Hudud and Qisas crimes may be exempted from adult sentences – including the death penalty – only if it is established that they were not mentally mature and developed at the time of committing the crime.
Under Iranian law, girls above nine years of age and boys over 15 are considered adults, and therefore can be condemned to death. Iranian authorities generally wait for young convicts to reach their eighteenth birthday before ordering their execution.
The use of the death penalty for purely political motives continued in 2012. But it is probable that many of the people put to death for ordinary crimes or for “terrorism,” may well be in fact political opponents, in particular members of Iran’s ethnic minorities, including Iranian Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Baluchis, and Arabs. Accused of being Mohareb – enemies of Allah – those arrested are often subject to rapid and severe trials that often end with a sentence of death. The punishment for Moharebeh is death or amputation of the right hand and left foot, according to the Iranian penal code.
According to Iran Human Rights, at least 23 (3%) of 294 people who were executed in 2012 according to the official Iranian sources were convicted of Moharebeh (war against God).
Iranian law provides for the death penalty in cases of possession of more than 30 grams of heroin or 5 kilos of opium.
In December 2010, a new anti-drug law came into effect extending the death penalty to possession of other types of illegal substances such as methamphetamine.
As in previous years, drug trafficking was the most frequently used charge against those who were executed in 2012 in Iran.
Of the 580 executions tallied by Iran Human Rights in 2012, at least 438 were for drug-related offenses. Drug-related charges account for approximately 76% of all death penalty cases in 2012. This is a very cautious estimate since it does not cover more than 240 secret executions in the Vakilabad Prison from November to December 2012. Almost all those executed secretly in the Vakilabad Prison were convicted of drug-related charges.
According to Iran Human Rights, in 2011, at least 480 executions, or 71%, were for drug-related offenses. In 2010, executions for drug trafficking, which were officially reported, were at least 66%. In 2009 there were at least 140 executions for drug-related crimes and 87 in 2008.
Those convicted of drug trafficking were sentenced to death by the revolutionary courts. The trials were conducted behind closed doors and it is not known whether the prisoners had access to lawyer or not. Since the vast majority of those executed for drug-related charges are not identified by last (family) name, it is not possible to confirm the charges. Human rights observers believe that many of those executed for common crimes such as drugs are actually political dissidents.
Authorities admit that many of the executions are for drug-related crimes.
“The number of executions is high because 74% of those executed are drug traffickers who traffic drugs from Afghanistan to Western European Countries,” secretary general of the Iranian Supreme Council for Human Rights, Mohammad Javad Larijani, on a visit to South Africa, told reporters in Pretoria on 12 May 2011. International Relations Deputy Minister Ebrahim Ebrahim earlier raised concerns about human rights in Iran, during his meeting with Larijani. Larijani said the death penalty would be reviewed only if the West participated in fighting the war against drug trafficking. “We cannot win this war alone. If Europe is interested in the prevention of the trafficking of drugs, then it should participate in this war.” The other option was for Iran to ignore drug trafficking, Larijani said. “We can close our eyes and drug traffickers can pass through Iran and go wherever they want to go and the number of executions in Iran will drop 74%. In fact, it will be very good for our reputation then.”
On 9 April 2013, Danish newspapers reported that the Danish government had decided to cut its aids to Iran’s anti-drug program. Denmark was one of several western countries providing financial aid to Iran’s war on drugs. The aid is provided to Iranian authorities through the UNODC (United Nation’s office for drugs and crimes). In the past few years several human rights organizations have urged the UNODC and donor countries to stop contributing indirectly to the increase in executions in Iran. Danish newspaper Politiken reported that "Denmark has the past two years given five million dollars annually to a counter-narcotics program in Iran." “During the same period, the Iranian authorities executed hundreds of suspected drug offenders, and on this basis, Development Minister Christian Friis Bach (Radikale) has now decided to immediately discontinue support for the program”, reported Politiken. “It is a signal to Iran that the use of the death penalty is unacceptable and something that we in no way can vouch for”, he told Politiken.
The widespread executions which have taken place inside prisons all over the Country are all carried out in secret, in groups, unannounced, extrajudicially, and arbitrarily. According to sources who have talked with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, the group executions inside Vakilabad Prison are carried out by putting convicts in a line in a roofless hallway leading to the prison’s visitation hall. The executions are carried out secretly, without the knowledge or presence of the prisoners’ lawyers and families, who do not find out about the executions until one or several days later. Even the prisoners themselves are unaware of their impending executions until a few hours before it is carried out.
The executions are unannounced because official governmental or judicial authorities never publish the details, numbers, names, or dates related to the executions, and never take official responsibility for the hangings. The Campaign believes that withholding official announcements of the said executions is a deliberate effort to conceal the actual statistics of executions in Iran.
Campaign’s sources have also said that these death sentences are usually issued at the end of often only in minutes-long trials, and that the suspects are deprived of a fair trial. Such conditions place these executions in the category of extrajudicial and arbitrary executions.
“A few specific branches within the Mashad Revolutionary Court review ‘several drug trafficking cases in each hour,’ without following procedures for a fair trial or without regard for current Iranian laws, and in many cases the widespread death sentence decisions are based only on reports from the Intelligence Office, the IRGC Intelligence Unit, or the Police Intelligence Unit, or with confessions extracted from the suspects under severe physical torture mostly inside police detention centres. Most, if not all of the widespread death sentences pertaining to drug trafficking suspects inside the Mashad Revolutionary Court are issued with only ‘a minutes long’ trial, without the presence of the suspect’s selected or court-appointed lawyers, and they are all upheld and carried out within just a few months,” a local source told the Campaign. “In many cases, the death sentences for foreign nationals, and mostly Afghan suspects, are issued without observing the ‘right to access consular services.’ These suspects’ lack of familiarity with the court’s official language, Farsi, keeps them from comprehending the judicial process and answers to questions,” added the source.
Iran Human Rights believes that one of the reasons for the secret mass executions in Vakilabad and other Iranian prisons is that the prisons are overfilled. According to official Iranian reports, there are about 600,000 prisoners in the Iranian prisons. IHR’s sources estimate that there are 20,000 prisoners in Vakilabad, though the prison only has the capacity to house 4,000 inmates. According to eyewitnesses, in some of the wards the prisoners have to sleep on the steps and in the corridors. The situation is similar in several other Iranian prisons, and it seems that mass execution of the death row prisoners is one of the solutions Iranian authorities have sought to overcrowded prisons in Iran. According to unconfirmed reports, there could be as many as 3,000 death row prisoners in Vakilabad in danger of execution in the coming months.
There were also reports of secret and unannounced executions in 15 other Iranian prisons. The majority of the reports came from prisons in Tehran/Karaj area: Evin, Ghezel Hesar and Rajai Shahr.
However, the death penalty is not the only punishment dictated by the Iranian implementation of Sharia. There is also torture, amputation, flogging and other cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments. These are not isolated incidents and they occur in flagrant violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that Iran signed and which expressly prohibits such practices.
Every year, thousands of youths are whipped for consuming alcohol or attending parties with the opposite sex or for outrages against public decency. Authorities consider whipping an appropriate punishment to combat immorality, and such punishments are publicly inflicted as a “lesson to those who watch.”
But the regime particularly outdoes itself in its violation of women’s rights. The segregation of men and women has increased since the first election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who as mayor of the capital first inaugurated the segregation of men and women in the city’s elevators. Authorities began police patrols in the capital to arrest women wearing clothes deemed improper. Hard-liners say that improper veiling is a “security issue” and that “loose morality” threatens the core of the Islamic republic.
Iranian law provides that the “blood money” (diya) for a woman is half that of a man. Furthermore, if a man kills a woman, a man cannot be executed, even if condemned to death, without the family of the woman first paying to the family of the murderer half the price of his blood money.
On December 27, 2003, after a favourable verdict by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Expediency Council approved a Majlis bill on equal blood money for Muslim and non-Muslim Iranian nationals. Under the bill, proposed by Parliament in January 2003, the blood money for recognized religious minorities in Iran - Jews, Christian and Zoroastrians - has become equal to that of a Muslim Iranian national, which corresponds to 150 million rial (14.500 euro).
On 20 December 2012, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted – by a recorded vote of 86 in favour, to 32 against, with 65 abstentions – a new Resolution on the situation of human rights in Iran. By its terms, the Assembly expressed deep concern at serious human rights violations relating to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the “alarming” high frequency of use of the death penalty in the absence of internationally recognized safeguards, and failure to abolish the execution of minors and persons who were under the age of 18 at the time of their offence.
On 20 December 2012, Iran voted against the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.