Four Nobel Peace Prize laureates condemned the escalating executions in Iran on Wednesday as numbers continue to soar.
The statement signed by Shirin Ebadi, Jody Williams, Tawakkol Karman and Leymah Gbowee, said Iran’s regime is using capital punishment as a “political intimidation tool to spread fear, silence opposition and desperately hold on to power.”
They noted that “on average, one person a day is executed in Iran on trumped up drug-related or vague religious infringement charges.”
An average of one execution occurred every five hours over the course of two weeks, between April 16 and April 30, according to data presented by the Iran Human Rights organization (IHR).
Between January and April 2024, 171 people, including six women, were executed.
Since the Women, Life, Freedom protests broke out in 2022, during which over 550 protesters were killed, the Iranian government has increased the pace of executions significantly. In 2023 alone, the country saw at least 834 executions– more than half of which were carried out for drug-related offenses and disproportionately affected minorities such as Kurds.
Amnesty International called the drug-related offenses trials “grossly unfair”. “further entrenching discrimination against marginalized communities” as Iran continues to persecute the country’s minorities.
They also called on the UN Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur on Iran, and the investigative fact-finding mission “to prioritize the incorporation of a gender lens in their continuous efforts to accurately reflect the extent of gender persecution and gender apartheid in Iran.”
