Seven prisoners have been hanged in the Iranian cities Mashhad, Shiraz and Tehran. On Tuesday June 7 state-affiliated Rokna news agency reported the deaths of three men, aged 30, 35 and 40 whom were tried by the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad.
Fars news agency, who are linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps reported on Monday June 6 that two Afghan nationals were hanged at a prison in Tehran in the presence of the a government prosecutor and a Tehran police chief. No names were released of the executed.
The official news agency IRNA reported the public hanging of two prisoners in Shiraz on Sunday June 5. The prisoners were identified as Amin, D. aged 22 and Mojtaba, G., aged 28. The two were purportedly executed simultaneously.
Ms. Farideh Karimi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and a human rights activist, last month called for an urgent response by the United Nations and foreign governments to the recent spate of executions and the appalling state of human rights in Iran.
Iran already has several bodies observing and monitoring its human rights situation, however the effect and strategy of these is disparate and limited to releasing condemnations to the press.
The punishments handed down in Iran have been internationally condemned as disproportionate and occurring at a startling frequency. Brutal punishments such as blinding with acid and removing fingers.
Amnesty International in its April 6 annual Death Penalty report covering the 2015 period wrote: “Iran put at least 977 people to death in 2015, compared to at least 743 the year before.”
“Iran alone accounted for 82% of all executions recorded” in the Middle East and North Africa, the human rights group said.
The number of executions that have taken place under the ‘moderate’ Hassan Rouhani has exceeded 2,400. Rouhani has endorsed the executions as examples of “God’s commandments” and a reflection of the laws of the “people’s” parliament. Iran’s factional leadership is demonstrated through the different news agencies linked to different groups. The IRGC is a powerful and armed group with diverse business interests. The presidency is regarded internationally by some as a mere figurehead, lacking the power of the Guardian Council.
