The Islamic Republic of Iran executed over 1,000 prisoners in 86 prisons across the country in 2024, according to a report by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The report describes the death toll as “an unprecedented figure in the past three decades,” marking a 16% increase from the 864 executions carried out in 2023.
Most of the executions by the regime occurred in the latter part of the year, with nearly 70% taking place following the July election of President Masoud Pezeshkian. The NCRI reported that around 47% of the executions were conducted in the fourth quarter of 2024, a period when the regime was struggling with significant regional setbacks and growing economic and social challenges.
Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the NCRI, condemned the execution spree, characterizing it as a “desperate effort to quell any potential uprising from a discontent population that seeks nothing short of the complete overthrow of the regime.” Rajavi remarked that these brutal acts only serve to strengthen the determination of Iran’s youth to dismantle the religious dictatorship.
The prisoners executed this year in Iran included 34 women and seven prisoners whose crimes were committed when they were juveniles. They also included 70 Afghan nationals, Amu TV reported. This represented an increase of about 300% over the prior year.
The NCRI reports that 119 of the executed prisoners were from the Baluchi minority. An August 2024 report from the United Nations-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran said that the Baluchis make up 2% of the Iranian population. The fact-finding mission also found that ethnic and religious minorities have been “disproportionately impacted by the Government’s response to the protests that began in September 2022,” after Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman arrested for not wearing a headscarf, died in Iranian custody.
Iranians protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by the morality police last month, in Tehran, Iran, on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022. (AP/Middle East Images, File)
Also among those executed by the Iranian regime in 2024 was 69-year-old journalist Jamshid Sharmahd, a German citizen and 20-year resident of the United States who was kidnapped in Dubai in 2020. Sharmahd was executed in October after being charged with “corruption on earth” in what was called a “grossly unfair” trial.
In an open letter shared by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, 25-year-old political prisoner Saeed Masouri wrote that “we witness an execution every four hours on average.” During Christmas, Masouri said that “nearly 25 innocent people were executed, equating to almost one execution every 2.5 hours.”
“I no longer know how much more I must see and endure,” Masouri writes, explaining that from the moment of his sentencing, he “consider[ed] every meeting to be [his] last and every ‘opening and closing’ sound of the door as a death knell.”
The NCRI reported that on the first day of 2025, 12 prisoners were executed by hanging at four Iranian prisons.
