'Execution spree' in Iran

Von einer regelrechten Exekutionswelle im Iran sprechen inzwischen Menschenrechtsorganisationen:

Iran is carrying out executions at a "horrifying pace" in state-approved killings on a mass scale that constitutes an "abhorrent assault" on the right to life, two rights groups said on Wednesday.

The Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Centre for Human Rights in Iran and London-based Amnesty International said in a joint statement that 251 hangings have been confirmed this year up until the end of June, although the real number may be even higher.

"If executions continue at this horrifying pace, they will soon surpass the total of 314 executions recorded for the whole of 2021," the groups said, denouncing an "execution spree".

They said that 146 of people executed in 2022 had been convicted of murder, "amid well-documented patterns of executions being systematically carried out following grossly unfair trials."

But at least 86 other people were executed for drug-related offences for which executions had dropped sharply in recent years until now, following changes to domestic legislation.

"During the first six months of 2022, the Iranian authorities executed at least one person a day on average. The state machinery is carrying out killings on a mass scale across the country in an abhorrent assault on the right to life," said Diana Eltahawy, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

The report said the authorities have regularly carried out mass executions in prisons across Iran, with up to a dozen people executed at a time.