NICOSIA —
Iran has executed more than 500 people so far in 2022, far more than in the
whole of last year, a rights group claimed on Monday.
اضافة اعلان
Norway-based group
Iran Human Rights (IHR) told AFP at least 504 people had now been executed in
Iran this year and that it was still working to confirm additional cases of
people said to have been hanged.
The figure comes
as concern grows that the authorities will make extensive use of the death
penalty against people involved in the anti-regime protests that have erupted
in Iran since September.
IHR’s count
includes four people who official media said were put to death on Sunday
accused of working with Israel’s intelligence service.
The rights group
said they were executed in Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj outside Tehran — also
known as Gohardasht — within just seven months of arrest.
“These individuals
were sentenced to death without due process or a fair trial behind the closed
doors of the Revolutionary Court,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam in
a statement. “Their sentences lacked all legal validity.”
“These executions
are intended to create societal fear and divert public attention from the
Islamic republic’s intelligence failures,” he added.
Another of those
recently hanged was a woman executed on Saturday in Dastgerd in central Iran
accused of murdering her father-in-law, IHR said.
Rights groups have
expressed alarm over the numbers of women executed in Iran, often on charges of
murdering parters or relatives in abusive relationships.
IHR said that the
numbers executed this year are already the highest in five years.
According to its
data, at least 333 people were executed in 2021, a 25 percent increase compared
to 267 in 2020.
Amnesty
International meanwhile put the number of recorded executions in Iran last year
at 314 — higher than in any other country worldwide, it says, while noting such
data is not available for
China, where it believes annual executions run into
the thousands.
Six people have
already been sentenced to death over Iran’s protests in what IHR calls “show
trials without access to their lawyers and due process.”
It says 26 people,
including three minors, are currently facing charges that could see them
hanged.
The authorities
have described those accused as rioters who attacked security forces and public
buildings, but the circumstances of the cases are disputed by activists.
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