In a grim new report, the Hengaw Human Rights Organisation has revealed that the Islamic Republic of Iran executed at least 99 individuals in June 2025 alone, a staggering ninefold increase compared to the same month last year.
Among those executed were 10 Afghan nationals. The charges ranged from political and religious offences to murder, drug trafficking, rape, and armed robbery.
Strikingly, Iranian authorities officially acknowledged only 19 of these executions. At least 17 prisoners were executed in secret, without notifying their families, highlighting what Hengaw described as a deeply troubling pattern of opacity.
The report also noted that 16 political prisoners were executed on charges of “spying for Israel.” Two of the executed were women, one convicted of premeditated murder and the other of alleged ties to religious groups. The executions took place in Qom and Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj.
Hengaw had earlier reported that at least 617 people, including 40 Afghans, were executed in Iran in the first six months of 2025.
Raising alarm over the accelerating rate of executions, arbitrary arrests, and systemic violence, Hengaw urged the international community to step up pressure on Iranian authorities to end what it called the regime’s “escalating use of capital punishment.”
