Iran has executed at least 901 people in 2024, including 40 in just one week in December, according to figures presented by the UN human rights chief.

“It is deeply troubling that we are once again seeing an increase in the number of people under the death penalty in Iran year on year,” said Volker Turk. “It’s time for Iran to stop this ever-increasing wave of executions”he pointed out.

He called on the Iranian authorities to stop all executions and put a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to its eventual abolition.

“The death penalty is incompatible with the fundamental right to life and raises the unacceptable risk of executing innocent people. And, to be clear, it can never be imposed for conduct protected by international human rights law.”he warned.

A spokesman for the UN human rights office told reporters that its information comes from several organizations it considers reliable, including the Iran Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Hengaw.

31 executions of women in 2024

On Monday, the Norway-based IHR said in a report that in at least 31 women were executed according to duration of 2024 – the highest number since it began tracking the death penalty 17 years ago. In fact, 19 of them were sentenced to death on charges of murderaccording to the report.

Among them was Leila Ghaemi, who, according to the IHR, strangled her husband after returning home one day to find him and his friends they are in a hurry her little one daughter.

The other 12 women were convicted of related offences drugs. Among them was Parvin Mousavi, who, according to the IHR, was working to support her family. They gave her about 15 euros to transport what was supposed to be some medicine, but it turned out to be 5 kilos of morphine.

Activists report that drug-related offences do not qualify as “serious crimes”to which the death penalty should be limited under international law. A separate report by Hengaw, a Kurdish human rights group, said, according to the BBC, that more than half of those executed last year belonged to Iran’s ethnic minorities, including 183 Kurds.

The UN fact-finding mission on Iran said in August that ethnic and religious minorities have been disproportionately affected since 2022, when nationwide protests erupted in response to the death of a young Kurdish woman who was arrested by morality police for not wearing a “proper hijab ».

5 minors were also executed

Meanwhile, HRANA reported that it recorded her execution of five juvenile offenders. International law prohibits the use of the death penalty in all cases where the accused was under 18 at the time of the alleged offence.

Iran accounted for 74% of all recorded executions worldwide in 2023, according to human rights group Amnesty International. The figures excluded China, which Amnesty said is believed to execute thousands of people each year, but where figures on the death penalty were secret.