Iran executed at least 1,639 people in 2025, the highest recorded number in the Islamic Republic since 1989, averaging four executions per day, according to a joint report by two human rights organisations — Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM, or Together Against the Death Penalty). The total represents a 68% increase compared to the 975 executions recorded in 2024.

The vast majority of those executed were convicted of drug-related offences or murder. Some 795 people were hanged on drug charges — a 58% rise on the previous year — while 747 were convicted of murder, a 79% increase. At least 48 women were executed, a 55% rise and the highest figure in more than two decades. Nearly half of the women executed had been convicted of killing their partners. The NGOs emphasise that their figures represent a confirmed minimum, with each execution requiring at least two independent sources to be counted, meaning the true toll could be higher.

At least 57 people were executed on security-related charges, including protesters and individuals convicted of membership in the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group. Since the start of the conflict with the United States and Israel on 28 February, seven people have been executed in connection with January's anti-government protests, during which thousands of demonstrators were killed and tens of thousands detained in what observers describe as an unprecedented crackdown. Six of those recently executed were accused of MEK membership; one, holding both Iranian and Swedish nationality, was convicted of spying for Israel. Just over half of all executions followed sentences handed down by Revolutionary Courts — Iran's special security tribunals — after what the NGOs describe as "grossly unfair trials and without due process."

Human rights advocates warn the situation may worsen. At least 16 people sentenced to death in connection with the 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" protest movement remain at risk, while 27 others have been sentenced to death over this year's unrest and hundreds more face charges carrying the death penalty. Ethnic minorities and other marginalised groups were disproportionately represented among those executed.

Why this matters: the scale of executions signals a significant escalation in state repression at a moment of acute political instability for the Islamic Republic. IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam called for a death penalty moratorium and the release of all political prisoners to be "demand number one" in any international negotiations, while ECPM's executive director Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan argued that abolishing the death penalty must be central to any US-Iran talks. Both organisations warn that, should the Iranian government survive its current crises, executions could be deployed even more extensively as a tool of political control.