Iran
Death penalty and prisoners' rights · Archive since 1999
Data card
- Legal status
- Retentionist
- Executions recorded in 2026
- 869
- Executions recorded in 2025
- 2,156
- First news item in the archive
- JANUARY 1, 1999 · The 1999 figures for capital sentences and executions...
- News items in the archive
- 9,218
Source: Hands Off Cain database, updated to 2026.
Iran is classified as Retentionist in the Hands Off Cain database, updated to 2026. In 2026 the association recorded 869 executions in the country, against 2,156 the year before. The archive holds 9,218 news items on Iran, from 1999 to today.
Iran is one of the countries where the association records the highest number of executions each year. The usual method is hanging, and capital punishment applies to a wide list of offences: murder, drug offences, offences against state security, sexual offences, and charges such as moharebeh, enmity against God, which allow very broad application.
Many executions are never announced. They emerge from local sources, from human rights organisations and from families. For Iran, more than anywhere else, the archive's count is a documented minimum.
Latest news
- MAY 13, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
An Iranian man convicted of murdering two fellow Iranians...
An Iranian man convicted of murdering two fellow Iranians with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, as well as three counts of rape, was beheaded with a sword in the south-eastern province of Sistan Baluchestan bordering Pakistan
- MAY 11, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Six men accused of a series of five murders to uphold...
Six men accused of a series of five murders to uphold Islamic morality in Iran's south-eastern city of Kerman were sentenced to death, the lawyer of one of the victims said
- MAY 5, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Iran's Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences...
Iran's Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences handed down to eight members of a kidnapping gang that operated in the northeastern city of Mashhad, the Qods newspaper reported
- APRIL 28, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
A convicted armed robber was publicly hanged in the...
A convicted armed robber was publicly hanged in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahwaz, the Entekhab daily reported
- APRIL 28, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Soheil Salehi Asl-Soreh, a convicted armed robber,...
Soheil Salehi Asl-Soreh, a convicted armed robber, was publicly hanged in the south-western Iranian city of Ahwaz
- APRIL 17, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
The website of the Iranian daily Jomhuri-ye Eslami...
The website of the Iranian daily Jomhuri-ye Eslami reported that verdicts issued against five persons condemned to death for rape and murder had been implemented at Tehran's Qasr Prison
- APRIL 1, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
The April issue of the Women in Iran magazine reported...
The April issue of the Women in Iran magazine reported that the death sentence issued on October 26, 2002 to a man who beheaded his daughter was commuted to three years imprisonment
- MARCH 20, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
The EU External Relations Council expresses serious...
The EU External Relations Council expresses serious worries at Iran's violations of human rights, particularly the lack of respect for freedom of expression, attacks against the Press, the imprisonment of journalists, intellectuals and students, applicati
- MARCH 20, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
The EU External Relations Council expresses serious...
The EU External Relations Council expresses serious worries at Iran's violations of human rights, particularly the lack of respect for freedom of expression, attacks against the Press, the imprisonment of journalists, intellectuals and students, applicati
- MARCH 19, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Two convicted armed robbers were publicly hanged in...
Two convicted armed robbers were publicly hanged in the western city of Khorramabad, the Persian daily Kayhan reported
- MARCH 15, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Dissident Iranian professor Hashem Aghajari, under...
Dissident Iranian professor Hashem Aghajari, under sentence of death for blasphemy, rejected a court order for his mental health to be examined by doctors, his wife said
- MARCH 12, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
The Aftab-e Yazd daily reported that students at the...
The Aftab-e Yazd daily reported that students at the Tarbiat-e Modarres teacher training university in Tehran had signed a petition calling for the unconditional release of academic dissident Hashem Aghajari sentenced to death for blasphemy
- MARCH 5, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
An Iranian court upheld on appeal a seven-year sentence...
An Iranian court upheld on appeal a seven-year sentence against a reformist cleric, initially sentenced to death for saying women should be free to decide whether to wear a veil, judicial sources said
- MARCH 2, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Mohammad Golabi, a member of the Iranian Kurdish group...
Mohammad Golabi, a member of the Iranian Kurdish group Komala and of the Iranian Communist Party, was executed in the central prison of Iran's western City of Saghez
- FEBRUARY 25, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Three Iranian armed robbers were hanged, two on February...
Three Iranian armed robbers were hanged, two on February 24 in the south-western city of Ahwaz, and one in Tehran on February 16, Iranian newspapers reported
- FEBRUARY 22, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
According to a statement issued by the Kurdistan Revolutionary...
According to a statement issued by the Kurdistan Revolutionary Union Party, in Sulaymaniyah the Islamic Republic of Iran executed the Sasan Ali Kan'an in prison in the city of Sinah
- FEBRUARY 18, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Hashem Aghajari's lawyer rejected charges of blasphemy...
Hashem Aghajari's lawyer rejected charges of blasphemy against his client after the Iranian Judiciary announced that the veteran intellectual, whose death sentence was quashed on February 14, may face the same punishment during a new trial
- FEBRUARY 17, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Iranian dissident Hashem Aghajari, whose death sentence...
Iranian dissident Hashem Aghajari, whose death sentence for blasphemy was quashed on February 14, will be retried by the same court which ordered his execution and could face the same penalty, a judiciary spokesman said
- FEBRUARY 14, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Iran's Supreme Court lifted the death sentence ordered...
Iran's Supreme Court lifted the death sentence ordered in the case of a university professor whose sentencing provoked nationwide demonstrations
- FEBRUARY 14, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
The head of the Interior Ministry's Centre for the...
The head of the Interior Ministry's Centre for the Participation of Women announced that the most important human rights issues concerning women were that of unequal blood money and the practice of stoning to death adulteresses
- FEBRUARY 14, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
IRAN LIFTS DEATH SENTENCE ON HASHEM AGHAJARI
February 14, 2003: Iran´s Supreme Court has lifted the death sentence ordered in the case of a university professor whose sentencing provoked nationwide demonstrations.Hashem Aghajari, a history professor at Tehran´s Teachers Training University, had been
- FEBRUARY 10, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
It was reported that a recent U
It was reported that a recent U
- FEBRUARY 10, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Iranian Judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi-Shahrudi...
Iranian Judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi-Shahrudi told visiting EU Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten on 3 February that executions by stoning are seen as a way of protecting the family, state television reported
- FEBRUARY 4, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
During his meeting with the Iranian Minister for Foreign...
During his meeting with the Iranian Minister for Foreign Affairs Khamal Kharrazi and with the head of the judicial authority, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hachemi Chahroudi, European Commissioner Chris Patten expressed his concern over freedom of the press and the u
- FEBRUARY 4, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
During his meeting with the Iranian Minister for Foreign...
During his meeting with the Iranian Minister for Foreign Affairs Khamal Kharrazi and with the head of the judicial authority, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hachemi Chahroudi, European Commissioner Chris Patten expressed his concern over freedom of the press and the u
- FEBRUARY 4, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Iran's Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi-Shahrudi...
Iran's Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi-Shahrudi said that the justice system has decided to replace 'stoning ' with other punishment
- FEBRUARY 3, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
The head of the Iranian Judiciary, Ayatollah Hashemi-Shahroudi,...
The head of the Iranian Judiciary, Ayatollah Hashemi-Shahroudi, in a meeting with EU Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten described the Islamic Shari'ah practice of capital punishment by stoning as a protector of the family unit
- JANUARY 30, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
In a resolution the European Parliament called for...
In a resolution the European Parliament called for the United States, Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Congo and others to introduce a moratorium on executions "with a view to completely abolishing the death penalty
- JANUARY 30, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Iran hanged four gangsters in public after they were...
Iran hanged four gangsters in public after they were convicted for a series of kidnappings and rapes, the official IRNA news agency reported
- JANUARY 28, 2003IranDEATH PENALTY
Two prisoners on Iran's death row and eight other inmates...
Two prisoners on Iran's death row and eight other inmates held in Varamin prison southeast of Tehran have escaped after using teaspoons to dig a six-metre tunnel, a newspaper reported