Iran executed at least 1,639 people in 2025, most since 1989: NGOs

Iranian authorities executed at least 1,639 people in 2025, the highest number since 1989, two NGOs said Monday, warning it risked using capital punishment even more extensively after protests in January and the war against Israel and the US.

The number of executions represented an increase of 68 percent on the 975 people Iran put to death in 2024, and also included 48 women who were hanged, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) said in their joint annual report.

If the Islamic republic "survives the current crisis, there is a serious risk that executions will be used even more extensively as a tool of oppression and repression", the report said.

IHR -- which requires two sources to confirm an execution, the majority of which are not reported in Iranian official media -- said that the figure represented an "absolute minimum" for the number of hangings in 2025.

The figure amounted to an average of more than four executions per day.

The report said the number of executions was by far the highest since IHR began tracking it in 2008, and was the most reported since 1989, in the earlier years of the Islamic revolution.

The NGOs also warned that "hundreds of detained protesters remain at risk of death sentences and execution" after being charged with capital crimes over January 2026 protests against the authorities -- quashed by a crackdown that rights groups say left thousands dead and tens of thousands arrested.

"By creating fear through an average of four to five executions per day in 2025, authorities tried to prevent new protests and prolong their crumbling rule," said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

- 'Creating fear' -

Even during the war against Israel and the United States that began on February 28, Iran has hanged seven people in connection with the January protests: six convicted of membership in the banned opposition group People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), and one dual Iranian-Swedish citizen charged with spying for Israel.

Raphael Chenuil-Hazan, executive director of ECPM, said: "The death penalty in Iran is used as a political tool of oppression and repression, with ethnic minorities and other marginalised groups disproportionately represented among those executed."

The report noted that the Kurdish minority in the west and the Baluch in southeast -- both of whom largely adhere to the Sunni strain of Islam rather than the Shia branch dominant in Iran -- are particularly targeted.

Almost half of those executed were convicted of drug-related offences, the report said.

At least 48 women were executed, the highest number recorded in more than 20 years and a 55 percent increase from 2024, when 31 women were hanged, according to the NGOs.

Of these, 21 women were executed for the murder of their husbands or fiances, the report said. Rights groups have said women executed for killing spouses or relatives were often in abusive relationships.

Almost all hangings were carried out inside prisons, but public hangings more than tripled to 11 in 2025, the report said.

Iran's penal code allows for other methods of capital punishment, but in recent years all known executions have been carried out by hanging.

Rights groups including Amnesty International say Iran carries out the most executions of any nation worldwide per capita, and the most of any country other than China, for which no reliable data is available.