The United Nations (U.N.) human rights office said on Friday that they were alarmed by the number of Iran executions with 29 people reportedly killed over two days this week and a total of at least 345 people killed this year.
“Imposing the death penalty for offenses not involving intentional killing is incompatible with international human rights norms and standards,” Liz Throssell, a spokeswoman for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said during a U.N. briefing on Friday.
On Wednesday, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group claimed that 29 men were executed for murder, rape and drug-related crimes in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaji, which is located roughly 30 minutes northwest of Tehran by car.
“U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk is extremely concerned about reports that, in the space of two days this week, Iranian authorities reportedly executed at least 29 people across the country,” Throssell said at the briefing. “This represents an alarmingly high number of executions in such a short period of time.”
Newsweek reached out to Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment on Friday afternoon.
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The U.N. human rights office confirmed on Friday that 38 people were executed in Iran in July, which brings this year’s total number of executions to at least 345, including 15 women. Minorities such as Kurds, Ahwazi Arabs and Baluch are disproportionately affected by the exdecutions, according to the U.N. human rights office.
Most the of executions this year were for drug offenses or murder, the U.N. human rights office said, adding that almost half of the executions were for drug-related offenses.
Several prisoners were executed without the knowledge of their families or their legal counsel.
“Imposing the death penalty for offenses not involving intentional killing is incompatible with international human rights norms and standards,” Throssell said at the briefing.
The U.N. human rights office urged Iran to temporarily stop executions and work toward abolishing the practice.
This is not the first time the U.N. has spoken out against Iran’s practice of the death penalty.
In November 2023, Secretary-General António Guterres, the head of the U.N., said in a report to the U.N. General Assembly that Iran was executing people “at an alarming rate,” with at least 419 people killed in the first seven months of that year.
Speaking about seven Iranian men who had recently been executed for participating in protests, Guterres said that in all the cases, information received by the U.N. human rights office “consistently indicated that the judicial proceedings did not fulfill the requirements for due process and a fair trial under international human rights law.”