Regarding Iran’s drug law, a reform restricting the use of capital punishment was made in 2017.
The bill amends Article 45 of the law of October 1988 on combating drugs. This represents an
improvement since it has reduced the number of executions for infractions not amounting to
most serious crimes. The amendment, however, only reduces, not eliminates entirely, the number
of drug convictions one can be sentenced to death for.
Between 2000 and mid-2017, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran has
documented around 8,200 executions carried out by Iran’s judiciary.4 Between January 1, 2018
and December 20, 2018, 256 reports have been registered by the Department of Statistics and
Publication of Human Rights Activists Association in Iran. This included 195 death sentences,
and 236 people with death sentences were executed (including 13 public executions). Based on
the announced identifications of some of the individuals executed, 232 were male and 4 were
female. 6 of them were juvenile offenders who were under the age of 18 at the time of
committing the crime. No issuance of stoning sentences has been reported in the last few years.5
Photos show that children are frequently present at public executions.6
Recommendation Status:
This recommendation has NOT been implemented.7
4
Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran
Numbers based on articles submitted to HRANA statistics center.
6
Iran Human Rights and ECPM, Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran 2019 (2020), 38.
7
For more please see: Iran Human Rights and ECPM, Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran 2019 (2020)
5
2