Iran Executed Over 1,000 People In 2025, Highest In 17 Years: NGO

Iran has executed at least 1,000 people so far in 2025, an NGO reported on Tuesday

Iran has carried out at least 1,000 executions in 2025 to date, according to a report released Tuesday by a Norway-based NGO that condemned what it described as a "mass killing campaign" within the Islamic republic's prison system.

The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group, which monitors and verifies daily executions in Iran, documented at least 64 executions in just the past week alone, averaging more than nine hangings daily.

With over three months remaining in 2025, this figure already represents the highest number since IHR began documenting executions in 2008, surpassing the 975 executions recorded in 2024.

While Iran experienced waves of executions during the 1980s and early 1990s following the 1979 Islamic revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, activists indicate that the Islamic republic is now implementing capital punishment more intensively than at any point in the last three decades. This surge comes as the clerical leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei faces challenges from the 2022-2023 protests and the 12-day conflict with Israel in June.

"In recent months the Islamic republic has begun a mass killing campaign in Iran's prisons, the dimensions of which -- in the absence of serious international reactions -- are expanding every day," stated IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam in a released statement.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is expected to potentially encounter Western leaders at the upcoming UN General Assembly in New York next week.

While Iran's nuclear program is anticipated to dominate discussions following the UN Security Council's vote to reimpose sanctions, Amiry-Moghaddam emphasized that the executions "amount to crimes against humanity and must be placed at the top of the international community's agenda".

"Any dialogue between countries committed to the foundations of human rights and the Islamic republic that does not include the execution crisis in Iran is unacceptable."

IHR stressed that its execution figures represent "an absolute minimum," with actual numbers likely higher "due to the lack of transparency and restrictions on reporting".

Executions in Iran are currently carried out exclusively by hanging, though other methods have been employed in the past.

Most executions occur within prison facilities, although public hangings do occasionally take place.

According to human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Iran ranks as the world's second most prolific executioner after China, which is believed to execute thousands annually, though precise figures remain unavailable.