17 November 2025 :
November 15, 2025 - IRAN. Over 1,600 executions since the beginning of 2025. At least 52 were women.
With eight executions on 14 November and six on 15 November, halfway through the month Iran exceeded 1,600 executions since the beginning of 2025, 1,607 to be precise.
Given that the Iranian government, which has total control over the domestic media, formally reports only a small proportion of executions (Iranian exile NGOs estimate that this figure is less than 10%), complete information can only be gathered by relying on the many Iranian exile NGOs. Among these NGOs, the most active are Hengaw (hengaw.net), IHR (iranhr.net), Hrana (en-hrana.org) and, with regard to the executions of women, Wncri (wncri.org).
Hands off Cain then periodically checks other websites as well, including KHRN, Iran HRS, Iran HRM, Farda English, Iran International, IranWire, People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK), and others. All these websites report executions that they learn about from their own sources or from funeral posters put up by families. Adding up all the executions, and after checking for any reports that appear twice, or cases of homonymy (always possible, because the “real” names of those executed are written in Farsi language and characters, and each NGO has slightly different ways of transliterating them into our alphabet), Hands off Cain is able to say that on 15 November, Iran exceeded the symbolic figure of 1,600 executions. Broadly speaking, half of the executions concern people accused of murder, and half concern people accused of drug-related offences. A small percentage concern crimes explicitly recognised as “political” (which in Islamic law fall under the two definitions of “Corruption on Earth” and “War against God”, which by extension means “Offence against Islam”), and some cases of rape.
For comparison, the HoC database recorded 968 executions in 2024, 878 in 2023, 646 in 2022, 377 in 2021, 284 in 2020, 298 in 2019, and 328 in 2018. Either the NGOs' “discovery” work has greatly improved, or it must be acknowledged that the Iranian regime is resorting to executions at a frenzied pace, unprecedented in its history, with the exception of 1988, when, between July and August, an estimated 6,000 to 30,000 political prisoners were executed. Leading independent analysts believe that the Iranian regime is aware of the serious difficulties it is facing and is attempting to prevent any kind of popular uprising by resorting to particularly fierce repression. The serious military setbacks Iran has suffered in its decade-long conflict with Israel, the loss of power in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Gaza, and the equally serious difficulties of its Russian ally, which, exhausted by the war of aggression against Ukraine, no longer has the resources to help Iran's proxies in the Middle East, are, according to many observers, at the root of the wave of executions.
