Spike in executions shows Iran’s prisons are ‘killing fields’, says Amnesty International

Iran has turned its prisons into sites of mass killing with at least 853 people executed in the Islamic republic in 2023, over half of them on drug-related charges, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

The London-based group said in a report that stronger international action was needed to halt the rise in executions, otherwise "thousands" risked being hanged in the coming years.

The Iranian authorities have "persisted with their state-sanctioned killing spree which has turned prisons into killing fields", Amnesty said.

The figure for 2023 was up 48 percent on the previous year and 56 percent of executions involved drug-related charges, Amnesty said.

Two other NGOs, Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), published a report last month giving the slightly lower figure of 834 people executed in 2023.

The surge in executions came after Iran was convulsed by protests that erupted in September 2022. Nine people have been put to death in cases related to the protests.

(AFP)

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