UN says Iran executed over 900 people in 2024, including dozens of women

The number of people executed in Iran rose to 901 last year, including 31 women, some of whom were convicted of murdering their husbands to fend off rape or after being forced into marriage, the U.N. human rights office said on Tuesday.

Most of the executions were for drug-related offences, but political dissidents and people connected with mass protests in 2022 over the death in police custody of a 22-year-old woman were also among the victims, the UN statement said.

"It is deeply disturbing that yet again we see an increase in the number of people subjected to the death penalty in Iran year-on-year," United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement sent to journalists. "It is high time Iran stemmed this ever-swelling tide of executions."

In total, at least 901 people were executed by hanging last year in Iran, compared with 853 in 2023, the UN rights office said. That represented the highest number since 2015, when 972 people were executed.

Iran's diplomatic mission in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the UN statement.

The 2022 protests, which sparked some of the worst turmoil since the 1979 revolution, followed the death in police detention of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly flouting Iran's mandatory dress code.